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Best course of action... I hope you’re not married and have a huge policy on the missus. /s

Are your parents and grandparents still alive?
Do you have any disabled relatives?
If they were in that situation and you had four days to do something... would you pin your hopes on someone giving them a shot and not bother?

Do you have children?
It could have easily been your child in an accident at a regular hospital who couldn’t walk re: casts... euthanize her because I can’t carry him/her?

Or newborns because we can’t carry the formula, diapers and everything they need?

Or a burn victim, post-op heart patient?

Let’s say, like all Gulf coasters you blew the threat off (I used to live there)... as usual; Owners of hospitals, nursing homes, orphanages and their medical staff don’t have that luxury, they are to start the evac as soon as possible ahead of the hurricane’s proj. hit.

They had days to get them out... there’s no excuse.
Because they’re in a certain state, you take even earlier action.

Now if you wanted to say ‘Where were their relatives and why didn’t they come get them?’, that’s one thing, but these are facilities (even if private), that are part of the evacuation plan for the city, just as the state has facilities to evacuate. (Unless these folks had no relatives or friends)

I see they had presence of mind to get themselves out after putting the patients down though. That has to kill them

As someone who searched for her family for weeks there, and fielded calls from a lawyer in Baton Rouge to our military for rescues, that pisses me off.

I know what you’re trying to say, re: suffering, the staff shouldn’t have been put in that situation by the owners to begin with.

The key is the flippant way the doc says, some had a DNR anyway to die naturally... As you know with the Groningen Protocol doctors make the decisions on life or death, not the relatives, they are attempting to kill the disabled up to 12 and forget about the elderly... oh, and your opinion doesn’t count.

We are judged by how we treat our most vulnerable, whether newborns, disabled, elderly.

Do you think relatives signed a piece of paper that said “In the event of natural disaster, should we not be able to transport your loved one to safety, we will end their suffering through euthanasia? When their relatives were worried and trying to get through... and if they got through earlier, what did they tell them? We’re leaving, getting them out of here, we don’t think we can make it and can we give grandma a shot?

But who knows, maybe all the other floors were evac’d just fine... it was just that seventh floor... you know Long Term Care where they received long term checks and should have been a second home to those there. The decision to put them there had to be painful for someone to start with. I guess there’s some folks who have to come to grips with a lot.

Okay, rant off.

In any case of evacuation, there are some unfortunate souls for whom it would be more dangerous to move them. In other words, attempting to evac them would likely kill them. In this case, you leave them and hope that whatever your evacuating from doesn't affect them that badly. This is when the first of many harsh decisions are made - If they have to stay behind, do you just leave them to die or do you leave someone there with them? If you leave someone there with them how long do you require that person to stay before you allow them to leave? Do you expect that person to die right along with them? What are the expectations?

This is the "lifeboat scenario" where you are in a lifeboat with twenty other people. You don't know how long it's going to take you to be rescued but you know you have enough food and water for everyone for one day, maybe two. What do you do? If you think it's going to take weeks for a rescue how do you decide to split the provisions and who lives or dies as a result? What if the rescuers arrive in three weeks to find five people alive and through the course of investigation find that over the course of the three weeks, there were decisions made and some of the weaker elements were tossed overboard to ensure the survival of the others - Should the five survivors be charged with murder for doing what it took to ensure that at least some of them survived?

We are judged by how we treat our most vulnerable, whether newborns, disabled, elderly.

In any herd, the weakest fall first whether to the lions, the elements, or in some cases the herd itself. It's harsh, but that's life and without that reality the human species would long ago have ceased to exist.

The bottom line is the question of whether it's more humane to allow someone who's dying of starvation and dehydration to do so in days or moments.

If the nurses and doctors who risked their lives to stay behind had simply walked away and let nature take it's course would it be okay to charge them with murder? Do you honestly believe that a doctor or nurse has a responsibility to give their life for a patient? Do you, or does anyone, believe they have the authority to demand that someone else give their life for someone?

Frankly I think that in situations where a person can't be evacuated for fear of killing them a family member should be required to either stay with them or sign off on attempting to move them. That puts the ball in the family member's court and whatever happens, they can't later blame the doctors or nurses for not "doing all they could."

Col Sanders