Posted on 07/25/2007 4:17:23 PM PDT by wagglebee
NEW ORLEANS, July 25, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A New Orleans grand jury decided Tuesday not to indict Dr. Anna Pou, a doctor who was accused of murdering four patients during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Pou had been charged by Louisiana's attorney general on 10 counts, including second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit second-degree murder.
Earlier this year two nurses who had admitted to administering lethal doses of medication to patients at the same medical center were offered immunity in return for their testimony before the grand jury.
Pou and the others have consistently claimed that while they did administer potentially lethal doses of medication to some patients at the Memorial Medical Center, they did so not to end the patients' lives, but to relieve unbearable pain.
Witnesses have dramatized the conditions at the medical center during the days following hurricane Katrina as being akin to a war zone. During that time whole sections of New Orleans were submerged in water, the city was without electricity, and the heat and humidity were stifling. Over 30 patients at the Memorial Medical Center died before the center was able to be evacuated some days later, some of them allegedly as a consequence of high doses of pain killers administered by Pou and the nurses.
"All of us need to remember the magnitude of human suffering that occurred in the city of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, so we can be assured that this never happens again and that no health care professional should ever be falsely accused in a rush to judgment," said Dr. Pou during a press conference following the announcement that she would not be indicted.
"Today's events are not a triumph, but a moment of remembrance for those who lost their lives in the storm and a tribute to all of those who stayed at their posts and served people most in need."
Pou told the press that upon hearing the news that the case against her would not go forward she was, "at home with my husband and I fell to my knees and thanked God."
Attorney-General Charles Foti, who charged Pou and the two nurses, has consistently declared his belief that the doctor and two nurses illegally killed their patients. "This was not euthanasia," Foti was quoted as saying when the details of the case first emerged. "This was homicide."
Foti said in announcing that he was filing charges against Pou and the nurses that he and his team of investigators, "spent almost 10 ½ months investigation and, after all of this, can only come to the conclusion that this crime has been committed."
The attorney general responded to the jury's recent decision saying, "I regret their decision."
"The dedicated employees of the attorney general's office have done their duty as required by federal and state law, and I am very proud of our efforts on behalf of the victims and their families," he said.
While Pou has garnered some significant public support, with some even praising her as a "hero" for her actions following Katrina, others have pointed out that cases like these are a slippery slope for the medical profession.
When the story about the actions of some medical personnel in New Orleans first broke in 2005, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Executive Director Alex Schadenberg had responded, saying, "Not to mitigate the extreme nature of the circumstances, but the euthanasia cases in New Orleans unveils the very problem with legalizing euthanasia: Who makes the decision?"
"Hippocrates recognized the fact that physicians are capable of being healers and they are capable of being killers," Schadenberg explained. "In order to protect patients, Hippocrates declared that a physician must 'do no harm' to their patients. Euthanasia in New Orleans proves to the world how easy it is for people who consider euthanasia as an option, to go from being healers to killers."
While Pou has escaped indictment on criminal charges, however, civil suits have been taken out against her by the families of three of the patients who she was accused of murdering.
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Editorial: The Cruelest Irony of All - When "Those Who Heal You Will Kill You"
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jul/07071010.html
New Orleans Doctors Kill Patients Rather Than Leave Them to Looters, Then Flee
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/sep/05091205.html
Doctor Charged in Katrina Deaths Denies Committing Murder, Euthanasia
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/sep/06092502.html
Doctor and Two Nurses Arrested For Hurricane Katrina "Euthanasia" Nightmare
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/jul/06071806.html
Court Documents: Hospital Gave Lethal Injections to Patients During Hurricane Katrina
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/jul/05071204.html
The TRUTH is that grand juries make mistakes.
I am curious about why you are so reluctant to answer my question.
Oh, give it a break! These people were doing pain management. You can go ahead and pontificate about ‘murder” while you know nothing about the situation.
This is NOT a slippery slope...this is about providing pain management to terminal patients, something YOU know nothing about.
Your type critics make me sick...you are the types that bring on euthanesia cause this country can not let doctors do effective pain management! Hospice does this kind of treatment ALL the time, no slippery slope there.
Bloviating people who have an ax to grind create more harm than good cause now with this lawsuit we have to deal with all the fools who won’t give adequate care to patients.
“I would not have killed them.”
What would you have done? Simple question.
Did this “pain management” kill the patients? Did the patients consent to this type of pain management?
Yes and in the future some loving, caring nurse's aide who doesn't want a patient to suffer will administer a 'potentially' lethal dose of morphine OR absent the nurse's aide, maybe a caring janitor who flunked out of pre-med.
Simple answer. Stayed with the patient. Not kill the patient. Just what was so important that would justify killing a patient?
So what’s it feel like to have no conscience?
I wouldn’t know. What is total detachment from reality like?
You tell me, you would know first hand.
Nope. I wouldn’t know at all. I don’t have an easy chair and I’m too busy on Monday mornings for quarter-backing.
I don’t think so, but if that’s the case, so be it. We can’t allow them to continue to practice medicine, can we?
“Even abandoning the patient would have been better than killing them.”
REALLY? Let them possibly suffer in the heat, humidity and stench of death, without ANY hope of being saved? That is just cruel. Do you REALLY believe that this doctor WANTED these people to die? That she had evil intent in her heart?
“ASK THE PATIENT”??? I have never read what these patients were being treated for, have you? Were they even ambulatory? Were they CAPABLE of giving consent? I don’t remember reading the answers to these questions. With what I have read, I have to give the doctor the benefit of the doubt.
You nor I know what was in her heart.
Such "cocktails" are also sedatives and pain-relievers. Using them hastens death. They were likely administered under less-than-optimal cirumstances, since they were deprived of their usual technologies. If you want to call that murder...
So what you’re saying is “sure it was murder, but they’re doctors, and these people were likely to die anyway.” You’re not denying that this doctor really did kill her patients. You’re just saying she had a good reason.
Don’t waste your time arguing with these psychos, IJ. It’s a waste of time.
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