Medical experts never testified in Katrina hospital deaths

CNN ^ | 8/26/07 | Drew Griffin and Kathleen Johnston

[Old Student]

“There were some vague stories that the hospital was like a bunker for most of a week, no communications, looters struggling to get in, and supplies had run out after the recipients were prioritized according to who was most likely to live. It sounded like hell, and I’m very hesitant to judge people in that environment.”

I remember the stories. There is a perfect judge, who knows what happened, and who made it happen. Let Him deal with it.

Being stuck in a hospital is bad enough with lights and air conditioning, refrigeration for drinks and food, and clean water. A simple appendicitis case might decide it’s not worth living without those. I know that the tonsillectomy I had a few years ago had me almost ready to beg for mercy, myself. The hour between when the first pill stopped working, and the second started to work, were hell on earth. I don’t know what I’d have done if I didn’t know that I WOULD get my next pill on time.

[Iwo Jima]

You should read the entire story. Here's an excerpt (parenthetical expressions and emphases are my own comments):

The summary [of the AG's report] states that [Dr.] Pou told the nurse executive of Lifecare, the acute care facility on the seventh floor of the hospital that housed the nine patients, that "a decision had been made to administer lethal doses of morphine to Lifecare patients."

According to the report, none of the nine was a patient of Pou's and there was no indication she had talked to their doctors before seeing them on the day they died.

The attorney general's report also said that other medical personnel told Pou that one of the patients, Emmett Everett Sr., was conscious and alert. Everett was 61 years old, weighed almost 400 pounds and was confined to a wheelchair.

"Dr. Pou decided (patient name blacked out) could not be evacuated. He could not be taken out by boat because he was not ambulatory and Dr. Pou felt he was too heavy to be evacuated by helicopter," according to the report.

In a written statement, Pou's lawyer denied that the combination of morphine and Versed is a "lethal cocktail." In addition, Rick Simmons said Pou's own expert said it is well-known among scientists that blood levels of morphine are "greatly increased" in patients who have been dead for many days.

Pou does not deny giving the patients drugs. In the days following Hurricane Katrina, floodwaters ran freely through the sweltering, pitch-black hospital, carrying human waste through its corridors, Pou told Newsweek.

Patients were moaning and crying in the halls; some were being fanned with slats of cardboard, others cooled off with dirty water and ice. Treatment was being administered under flashlights, Pou told the magazine.

"What you have to do when resources are limited, you have to save the people you know that you can save. And not everybody is going to survive those kind of conditions. And we knew that," Pou told Newsweek.

The patients on the seventh floor were among the sickest in the hospital, Pou said. Pou administered painkillers and sedatives "to help the patients that were having pain and sedate the patients who were anxious," she acknowledged.

"Basically what we're trying to do is help the patients. Let me tell you --God strike me dead -- what we were trying to do was help the patients," she told Newsweek. "Any medicines given were for comfort. If in doing so it hastened their deaths, then that's what happened. But this was not, 'I'm going to go to the seventh floor and murder some people.' We're here to help patients."

Brescia, one of the five medical experts, said the fate of Everett troubled him the most."This one case sort of stands out to you and says to you, 'Gee, I'm not sure what happened,' " Brescia said. "And that's what I said, this particular case, if you want to use the word suspicious or unclear or whatever word you want to use, I'm not sure why this patient is dead."

Family members of another one of the patients, Elaine Nelson, hired their own forensic expert to explore why the 90-year-old woman died. The report alarmed her son, Craig, a New Orleans lawyer. "It showed that Mom had received on September 1 eight milligrams of morphine, which was four times the amount that she was prescribed by her doctor, and which was a lethal amount that was certainly enough to kill her," Nelson said. Nelson said neither he nor his sister Kathy, a registered nurse who was with their mother after Katrina until guards ordered her to leave the hospital, were called before the grand jury. Their forensic expert wasn't called either.

Nelson has filed a lawsuit against the hospital owner and others. He said he refused a settlement offer because he wants the truth to come out, especially now that Jordan has closed the case. Nelson said he is disappointed in the way the grand jury was conducted.

[Grizzled Bear]

I am certain that under deplorable conditions the doctors did everything they could to save as many lives as possible and to ameliorate suffering. I’d not judge them until I walked in their shoes, and I expect the prosecution and gj thought so, too.

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I’ve never been in the position of a guard at Auschwich but that doesn't lead me to excuse their behavior. Right is right and wrong is wrong.

The medical center had opportunities AND OFFERS to evacuate their patients to safe havens before the hurricane hit. If the patients had been evacuated and the hurricane had not hit, it would have cut into their profits. This is the same reason Nagin waited so long to give the order to evacuate.

[Iwo Jima]

See my post #22, and read the entire article.

The medical experts all know that they were not called before the grand jury.

Dr. Pou ADMITS that she gave the injections. A Dr. Barrett and others reported hearing her agree to do so and then go into their rooms with the syringes, the same patients who were on autopsy found to have lethal doses of the drugs that it had been decided to use to kill the patients (Versed and morphine).

[vetsvette]

You’re operating on the false premise that the justice system is supposed to dispense justice. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

[penowa]

Nobody should be surprised at this outcome and that the testimony against those involved was never even heard by the grand jury. We have many medical professionals, some of them posting on FR, who think they, like Michael Schiavo and the corrupt judicial system, have an absolute right to play God and decide who should live and who should die.

[Coleus]

.

[Iwo Jima]

The medical center (owned by Tenet) could have evacuated all of their patients AFTER the storm hit, but instead chose to rely of “free” help from the government. HCA (NOT my favorite hospital) made their own arrangements, and with no reported problems.

[Grizzled Bear]

The grand jury decided there was no crime. End of story.

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No. It’s not the end of the story. They’ve been excused by worldly authority. They’re will still face another Judge. His authority is the highest and I do not envy their condition when they are face to face with Him.

[Iwo Jima]

I don’t know why you would say that. The justice system is most assuredly SUPPOSED to dispense justice, although sadly it does not far too often.

[penowa]

"Dr. Wecht’s credibility and credentials are above reproach."

I wouldn't go THAT far. I don't know that Wecht has ever been challenged on the quality of his work, per se, however, he has been involved, not once, but twice, in law suits that have charged him with converting public property, public employees, etc. to his personal use. He has once re-paid a bundle to his employer, the taxpayers of Allegheny Co., for having done this, and is once again fighting the same charges as he apparently went right back to doing it as soon as the first charges were dropped with the reimbursement.

[Old Student]

“It showed that Mom had received on September 1 eight milligrams of morphine, which was four times the amount that she was prescribed by her doctor, and which was a lethal amount that was certainly enough to kill her,”

My wife takes considerably more morphine than that daily. Although it is possible that was enough to kill her, it is by no means certain. We have some information presented as fact that is not necessarily so. How many times is that repeated in this article?

[Old Student]

“They’ve been excused by worldly authority. They’re will still face another Judge. His authority is the highest and I do not envy their condition when they are face to face with Him.”

Go back and reread my post. I said essentially the same thing. I will point out, however, that you are assuming guilt. I do not. He will know what happened, and who is responsible. You do not. Lots of “information” in the article that is not necessarily fact, as I said a moment ago to someone else.

[Iwo Jima]

Is your wife 90 years old and frail enough to live in a hospital (on a skilled nursing unit)?

[Joan Kerrey]

I am certain that under deplorable conditions the doctors did everything they could to save as many lives as possible

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I agree. These healthcare providers could have easily disappeared and made their way home or just awol. They stayed in deplorable conditions exerting and enduring endless labor and hardships.

Then the arm chair prosecutors come and accuse them of murder. Unbelievable. The grand jury chose not to go further yet these accusers want blood, anybody’s blood as long as someone gets charged allowing them to proceed to court with demands for millions of dollars. This is about money folks, nothing more.

[Iwo Jima]

Pinged as promised.

[Joan Kerrey]

No, some of these doctors deliberately killed people.

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Yup. I guess that’s why they stayed when they could have simply disappeared. I guess that’s why they endured unbelievable hardships just to murder patients. I guess that’s why they carried beds and equipment up or down long staircases just so they could murder patients. Give me a break!!!!

[Old Student]

“Is your wife 90 years old and frail enough to live in a hospital (on a skilled nursing unit)?”

No. to the first part, quite possibly to the second, if I were too frail myself to care for her. However, you do not know this lady was frail, either. I’ve known some pretty tough old ladies. You keep assuming, and denying that you know next to nothing. As I said, the morphine could have killed her, but it did not necessarily do so. Why waste your time attacking me? YOU DO NOT KNOW! Neither do I. I at least admit that, however.

[wagglebee]

None of your points give any credence to your theory.

[Iwo Jima]

If Dr. Pou had just gone home, I would not condemn her nearly as much as I do, nor would she be in such serious legal trouble.

What she did wrong was killing several patients before she left the hospital.

If you had been one of these patients and Dr. Pou had come to you and said, "I'm going home now, but before I go, do you want me to kill you?" what would your response have been? Why weren't these patients given the opportunity to make their wishes known?

Being in deplorable conditions and working long and hard hours doesn't give you the right to kill a patient.