Investigation New Orleans' Memorial Med Center Hospital (Euthanasia)

[temperance14]

Was there a discussion of euthanasia for critically ill patients who could not be transported during the Katrina crisis? If so, where those decisions acted upon?

“Soon after Hurricane Katrina struck, the first unconfirmed reports surfaced of "mercy killings" -- euthanasia of patients -- at New Orleans hospitals. For months, the Louisiana attorney general has been investigating these charges. That investigation has centered on the actions of doctors and nurses at the city's Memorial Medical Center.”
“According to eyewitness accounts documented in court papers, in the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina hit, a decision was made to euthanize patients on the hospital's seventh floor, a separate long-term patient care facility run by LifeCare Hospitals.”


Longish text file, and NPR sound file:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5219917

Comments

choices choices

[ldynight.livejournal.com]

you are stuck to a bed, you are a vegatable and if they move you to much or your machines give out you could die, not to mention the hurricane to end the world and knock the building down is on the way:
1. you could stay in bed and die when the building collapses
2. you could stay in bed and die when the building floods
3. you could stay in bed and die when the power goes off & machines die
4. you could be in a stretcher and maybe not make it to the next safe hospital.
5 doctors could simply put you to sleep

if there is next to no pain involved in #5, I'm all over that one.

But maybe I'm missing the point?

Re: choices choices

[temperance14.livejournal.com]

Bigger concern was that had at least one woman who was there visiting her mother, who noticed a change in her mother's cognitive state.

Even if her mother is on DNR, the doctors are to notify the family, even if all you can do is call them and say, "She's dying now". Even if you can't get there they notify you. (In optimum situations, you call family to explain the medical circumstances, to make sure they understand what's going on in relation to the EOL terms that were agreed upon.)

In this situation, the daughter was visiting the mother regularly, and suddenly noticed a change in her mothers cognitive state. Did the doctors, in anticipation they could not move the patient safely, "medicate" the mother without notifiying the daughter as to what they were doing and why. Because this is NOT what any family would have considered in EOL situation.

I would probably agree: if the patient were close to dying, and the building is in danger, and the patient could not be moved without danger--I might consider all those. Believe me, I've been there with my mum and the decision for hospice care.

But you communicate with whatever family is available. The daughter was there frequently...it's not like they had to track her down. The daughter should not have been blindsided or kept in the dark, if that was the case.

oh I agree on the notification part.

[ldynight.livejournal.com]

I read the article after I posted and I agree they handled it all wrong. But I also think that if it was my mother in the hospital, I would have stuck by her side like the woman in the article. What I would have done differently is beat the crap put of anyone who threatened her.