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?