Posted on 07/24/2007 1:45:52 PM PDT by LM_Guy
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - A grand jury refused on Tuesday to indict a doctor accused of murdering four seriously ill hospital patients with drug injections during the desperate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, closing the books on the only mercy-killing case to emerge from the storm.
Dr. Anna Pou acknowledged administering medication to the patients but insisted she did so only to relieve pain.
Pou (pronounced "Poh") and two nurses were arrested last summer after Attorney General Charles Foti concluded they gave "lethal cocktails" to four patients at the flooded-out, sweltering Memorial Medical Center after the August 2005 storm.
The decision was a defeat for Foti, who accused the doctor and the nurses, but it was the New Orleans district attorney who presented the case to the grand jury, asking it to bring murder and conspiracy charges.
"I feel the grand jury did the right thing," said District Attorney Eddie Jordan.
Charges against the nurses, Lori Budo and Cheri Landry, were dropped after they were compelled to testify last month before the grand jury under legal guidelines that kept their testimony from being used against them.
Many people in New Orleans believed the three acted heroically under punishing conditions. Last week, a group of doctors and nurses held a rally on the anniversary of Pou's arrest, and hundreds of people turned out to show support.
"You look at a lady who's trying to help the community, and they try to indict her," said Clarence Singleton, who was selling seafood lunches Tuesday near the Louisiana Superdome.
Pou and the district attorney who oversaw the case were to speak at news conferences later Tuesday.
In an interview last fall with CBS'"60 Minutes," Pou said: "I've spent my entire life taking care of patients. I have no history of doing anything other than good...."
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.myway.com ...
Just curious... Do you believe they killed those people?
“lethal cocktails”
Stupid term, a PR stunt, for sure.
I’d like to think she was being merciful rather than mean. Tough call.
I have no doubt that if I am in a situation where no medical help is coming or possible, and horrendously suffering death which is not an if but a given in the situation, and all of society has completely broke down and I am trying to run a hospital in such a situation, with no resupplies, no electricity, no sterility, no nothing, then yes, I would not have any issues ending their suffering.
Just as I would not hesitate to put a bullet into the brain stem of another human if they were lying there with their brains hanging out of their head, obviously going to die, and no medical help of any sort was available.
If these actions will send me to hell by my maker, then I will face his judgement for them. However to bring these people up on charges for their actions in the situation they were in is unconscionable.
Should have never been indicted in the first place !
You’re right. This was no place for the sick and the elderly. I was here in New Orleans. I was not flooded but when I say hot!! I’m sure hell would have felt better. No water or food for days and electricity for weeks! Those people would have suffered and died miserably. The military evacuated a child who had cancer from Children’s Hospital. She was the last to be lifted because she was so ill. She died in Houston after the evacuation. The Doctor did the right thing.
I agree with you, ID. I am surprised by the attitude of some here.
Yes.
The hospital, much like the rest of New Orleans, knew this storm was coming. They knew what the potential for destruction was. If they really cared for the lives of these patients they would have moved them to other facilities away from the city. These deaths are inexcusable.
I would venture that I'm as pro-life, anti-abortion, anti-euthanasia, anti-assisted suicide as any other person on this forum. Having said that, we can never fully know what was in the heart and mind of Dr. Poh. It is known that, yes, these people knew what was coming, but I don't think it was within Dr. Poh's authority or ability to evacuate the patients. She did in fact, as I understand it, volunteer to remain behind with patients who could not be, or were not evacuated. I don't think there's any morality in blaming a doctor for the failures of city government and the hospital administration.
The state AG in LA, Charles Foti, had been the Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff for years...yet this is his idea of prosecuting homocide in New Orleans while thugs run free in the streets. He bills himself as being for the children and seniors, and would suggest that this attempt to indict medical personnel was a bid for senior voters. If he were serious about prosecuting New Orleans homocides, I think he'd have better places to start.
If a physician who stayed behind to care for patients says she administered the drugs to relieve pain, I'm inclined to believe her over Foti who does very little that's not political grandstanding. I find it hard to believe that the doc stayed behind just for the opportunity to kill patients...
Interesting observation which I believe you are correct in.
What about the post-Katrina atrocities committed by the FEMA Law Enforcement (F.E.M.A.L.E.) people?
By all means, give the patients whatever care you can to make them as comfortable as possible. But killing a patient is wrong.
The truth is, you cannot know whether help is on the way or whether a patient is going to die.
“Should have never been indicted in the first place!”
Well fortunately, although they were charged, it was up to the grand jury to indict and they had the good sense not to do that. Judging by the sentiment expressed by a large number of people all around the city concerning the actions of the nurses and the doctor post Katrina, it would have been hard to find a jury that would have convicted them.
What does street crime have to do with this case?
Can the state indict no murderer if it is unable to apprehend and indict all murderers? That doesn't make any sense at all.
You indict the murderers you have. Hopefully you will catch them all. But, failing that, you indict the murderers you have.
It has to do with an incompetent State AG trying to be relevant by Nifonging a physician and two nurses.
Can the state indict no murderer if it is unable to apprehend and indict all murderers?"
The state can indict as many people as it wants for any crime they want (see "ham sammich"). They can also misallocate the limited investigative and prosecutorial resources all they want as well. That doesn' make it morally right, even if it is politically expedient.
We obviously differ on the morality of these particular murders.
Thank you, Karnak. The rest of us poor mortals did not know "what the potential for destruction was" and that New Orleans would turn into a lawless hellhole for days. This was the proper decision as were the doctors'.
They were heroes.
Uh, how do you pronounce "Poh?"
Sorry, when someone is terminal, in obvious pain and suffering and the limited resources available must be conserved, for unknown and indefinate times because society has literally collapsed. The rules have changed.
Society allows many excesses and privaleges that lack of it does not.
When society collapses, you are left with survival. If a bed or drug or whatever is needed for a patient that can be saved it is not wasted on one that cannot be.
It may sound cruel, but that’s how life is. This doctor did nothing wrong under the circumstances. If you believe he betrayed Gods law then he will face God’s judgement at the end of his days. He should never have been charged under mans law given the circumstances they were working under.
No, you are wrong. If the patients are in a terminal condition and you can do nothing to save them, you make them as comfortable as possible and let nature take its course.
These doctors had enough morphine to administer lethal doses, so they had enough to relieve the pain of the patients.
Society allows many excesses and privaleges that lack of it does not.
Your excuses about the collapse of society are not convincing. Most of the disaster reporting in New Orleans was greatly overblown. But even if the situation were as bad as you say, it was a temporary condition. Eventually law and order were restored.
A doctor cannot know for certain whether a patient is going to die, or how long it will take, or whether help might arrive before then.
When society collapses, you are left with survival. If a bed or drug or whatever is needed for a patient that can be saved it is not wasted on one that cannot be.
A specious argument. Whose survival was enhanced by killing those patients? Certainly not theirs. Were any "resources" wasted on them that could have saved another patient?
The hospital staff were about to evacuate the hospital, and did not want to leave the non-ambulatory patients behind. So they killed them. No resources were saved for any other patients.
It may sound cruel, but that’s how life is. This doctor did nothing wrong under the circumstances. If you believe he betrayed Gods law then he will face God’s judgement at the end of his days. He should never have been charged under mans law given the circumstances they were working under.
It sounds both cruel and evil. You would give doctors a license to kill people who have become an inconvenience. That is not the way we want life to be.
Although I am not generally convinced by slippery-slope arguments, your reasoning could be used to justify all sorts of evil. You wrote, "If a bed or drug or whatever is needed for a patient that can be saved it is not wasted on one that cannot be." Presumably you meant that rule to apply only in extreme emergencies; but what constitutes an extreme emergency? An earthquake? A power outage? A severe budget crunch?
Your use of the word "murder" is really telling in light of the fact that a grand jury (who, unlike either of us, had access to all the evidence the prosecutor could bring to bear) declined to have the case tried.
If we differ on the morality of these "murders," I suppose we'll also have to differ on the morality of rogue prosecutors who are completely willing to destroy people for their own political advancement.
Nope, sorry.
Your “make them as comfortable as possible” is nice and tryte rhetoric, but its not realistic.
A doctor with limited resources, cannot justify unlimited morphine for a an terminal and dying patient. They can also not justify bed space if that bed is needed for someone who can be helped.
You talk platitudes, which society affords, when it collapses, and survival is the rule of the day, all your niceties of how we get to behave not only in a society, but in a society of excessive wealth such as we have in america today go away.
When it is you who must make the call of letting a terminal patient lie in 100 degree heat and humidity with contaminated floodwater on the floor, festering sores, in obvious pain and suffering, while you must conserve the resources you do have for the others out there (unknown to you) who may come to your door for help that can be saved, then you will have authority to judge these people.
You haven’t so you don’t. You think life is rosy, its not, society particularly wealthy society grants complete excesses that do not exist outside of it. Go spend some time in a poor nation, where this is the state of EVERY hospital, and spend some time there trying to maximize the help you can provide and try to argue that that dying patient deserves the medicine that will not cure him, while others who can be cured by it are sitting in the bed next to him, but can’t have it, because his comfort is more important than their lives.
You have lived a life of privaledge, good for you. However don’t think for one minute this is how the world in general works. Or that your life of privalege affords you judgement over those who have to live in worlds and situations without.
You can sit in the Ivory tower and look down your nose at these people all you want, if that makes you sleep at night. However if you think for one minute that if you ever find yourself in similar situations where survival is the only order of the day, that someone your esteemed ethics of excess will rule the day, you will learn a very very hard lesson.
Very good post.
not sure what i think about this since i think drs kill people every day with a combination of too much morphine and no water/food. i am sure they did my mother.
yet, do you remember how absolutely dire things seemed because of the reporting during the first days? i wonder how much did the overreporting by the media have to do with the deaths of these people?
It is not clear from the information I’ve read that these 4 patients would have died within the timeframe it would have taken to get help there. I’m always in favor of erring on the side of life, but I don’t have enough information at this point to make a call on this one.
Did you even read what I wrote? More importantly, have you even bothered to read accounts of the case? The news accounts that I have seen (which admittedly could be incorrect) do not state that the patients were killed to free up bed space for other patients. The hospital was to be evacuated, and the hospital staff decided they could not take some of the seriously ill patients with them.
You talk platitudes, which society affords, when it collapses, and survival is the rule of the day, all your niceties of how we get to behave not only in a society, but in a society of excessive wealth such as we have in america today go away.
A platitude is a trite or obvious remark. Can you point to any platitudes in my previous posts?
When it is you who must make the call of letting a terminal patient lie in 100 degree heat and humidity with contaminated floodwater on the floor, festering sores, in obvious pain and suffering, while you must conserve the resources you do have for the others out there (unknown to you) who may come to your door for help that can be saved, then you will have authority to judge these people.
You describe a difficult, even desperate situation; but it is not at all clear that that is what actually happened in New Orleans.
I have not claimed any authority to judge anyone. I am expressing an opinion. That is what we do around here.
You haven’t so you don’t. You think life is rosy, its not, society particularly wealthy society grants complete excesses that do not exist outside of it. Go spend some time in a poor nation, where this is the state of EVERY hospital, and spend some time there trying to maximize the help you can provide and try to argue that that dying patient deserves the medicine that will not cure him, while others who can be cured by it are sitting in the bed next to him, but can’t have it, because his comfort is more important than their lives.
You really need to get yourself a dictionary and look up the meaning of the term ad hominem.
You and I have never met. You have no idea what I think about life, whether my outlook is rosy or pessimistic or realistic. You do not know whether I have spent time in a poor nation (I have). You would do better to respond to what I actually wrote and refrain from long-distance psychoanalysis. (You are not very good at it.)
You have lived a life of privaledge, good for you. However don’t think for one minute this is how the world in general works. Or that your life of privalege affords you judgement over those who have to live in worlds and situations without.
To repeat, we have never met. You know nothing about my history. You are assuming that anyone who disagrees with you must live a life of privilege. You are further assuming that the opinions of such persons are not valid. Both assumptions are questionable.
You can sit in the Ivory tower and look down your nose at these people all you want, if that makes you sleep at night. However if you think for one minute that if you ever find yourself in similar situations where survival is the only order of the day, that someone your esteemed ethics of excess will rule the day, you will learn a very very hard lesson.
I do not own an ivory tower. Nor have I preached any ethic of excess.
You never bothered addressing the issue I raised at the end of my previous post. What in your mind constitutes an emergency severe enough to justify killing seriously ill patients?
I don’t assume because you disagree with me that you have a life of privalege. I assume that you are on a computer on the internet judging those who dealt with a desperate situation as someone who’s never dealt with as a person of privalege.
You are privaleged in terms of human existens simply by the fact you are involved in this discussion. If you cannot see this, you are beyond naive and ignorant.
Poverty in western civilization, even the most poor in the Western World are insanely privaleged compared to the majority of the human population of the planet. Your complete ignorance of this fact, and claiming me calling you privaledged as meaning you must be super rich shows utter ignorance of the world we live in. You go to a hospital where that vial of Pennicillin is as common as a glass of water, if it spent on you today, another will replace it without issue tommorrow.... that’s privalege, and you don’t even recognize it. How utterly ignorant you are to how much of the world and much of humanity exists.
If you can stand here, talking on a computer, over a worldwide technological network, safe in your home in a relatively safe environment, and not realize how incredibly privaleged you are relative to most of the world then you clearly need to do a tour of duty in the third world. I am so sick of people who are so insulated in their exposure that they can live entire lives surrounded by wealth and privalege and claim they are not privaleged. Just because you can’t get away with what Paris Hilton does does not mean you are unprivaleged.
You live in a society full of wealth, wealth that large portions of the globe and most of human experience have never seen. The fact you live in a western culture is proof that you live a life of relative privalege compared to most of human experience on this planet, your ignorance of it just reinforces where your attitudes and platitudes come from.
I’ve said it before I’ll say it again. When you go deal with a poor nations health care, or are delivering or responsible for emergency services in desperate situation such as what was New Orleans in the post Katrina aftermath, then you can judge those who have had and do have to make such decisions as part of their daily lives.
As a matter of fact, I have done a tour of duty in the Third World.
I am so sick of people who are so insulated in their exposure that they can live entire lives surrounded by wealth and privalege and claim they are not privaleged.
You need to take that up with people who fit that description. I am not one of them.
You live in a society full of wealth, wealth that large portions of the globe and most of human experience have never seen. The fact you live in a western culture is proof that you live a life of relative privalege compared to most of human experience on this planet, your ignorance of it just reinforces where your attitudes and platitudes come from.
I agree wholeheartedly with everything you write in this paragraph down to the point where you start in on my supposed ignorance.
You have managed to change the subject from the Katrina Hospital deaths to my understanding of the advantages of living in an advanced, wealthy, and free society. Rest assured, I do understand—and appreciate—those advantages. And I think that most Americans would benefit from experiencing life in the Third World.
That said, it is clear you have no interest in addressing what I actually wrote about the original subject, so there seems to be little point in continuing. Good day to you.
“They’ve literally gotten away with murder.”
You don’t know that, and I don’t know that. Whatever evidence there was, the grand jury heard it and refused to indict.
What we do know is that these people stayed and cared for their patients, literally risking their own lives, while others ran for the hills. Again, literally.
You seem angry with me. Why is that? I said I did not know that these people murdered anyone. That still seems reasonable. I said these people stayed behind to care for patients. That’s factual. I said a grand jury looked at the evidence and failed to indict. That, too, is factual. Is the evidence that was presented to the grand jury openly available? I must admit, I haven’t seen it or heard it, so you’re right. I don’t know so much about the prosecutor’s case. Do you?
Her choices were (a) provide routine medication that would relieve pain or (b) refuse routine medication and cause great suffering to the patient. Again, due to the extreme conditions at the hospital, either choice could have resulted in death. But the notion that she intentionally euthanized her patients is incorrect; she provided medication normally given to cancer patients.
As for the responsibility of Tenet Hospitals, who left these pour souls behind in the face of a huge storm, that's a different story.
Have the autopsies been released? I know they were under seal during the grand jury, but now that that's over with, they may have been made public.
Anyway, according to Frank Minyard, the Orleans Parish Coroner, the toxicology reports were inconclusive.
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