NYT: Louisiana Doctor Said to Have Faced Chaos

[DeepModem Mom]

Louisiana Doctor Said to Have Faced Chaos
By CHRISTOPHER DREW and SHAILA DEWAN
Published: July 20, 2006


Lee Celano for The New York Times
Dr. Anna M. Pou at her mother’s home Wednesday in New Orleans. She and two nurses are accused of killing patients at Memorial Medical Center.

NEW ORLEANS, July 19 — She arrived at Memorial Medical Center to treat several patients as Hurricane Katrina’s winds were gathering and did not leave until days later, when the water and the temperature and the body count had risen beyond endurance.

By the time the ordeal ended, her friends and supporters say, Dr. Anna M. Pou was one of the few doctors left in a hospital that had become a nightmare.

Overheated patients were dying around her, and only a few could be taken away by helicopter, the only means of escape for the most fragile patients until the water receded. Medicines were running low, and with no electricity, patients living on machines were running out of battery power. In the chaos, Dr. Pou was left to care for many patients she did not know.

But did she cross a line during those harrowing days, using lethal injections to kill several patients who were in extreme distress? The attorney general of Louisiana says Dr. Pou did, and on Tuesday recommended that she be prosecuted for murder.

Her supporters, though, say there is another explanation: she was using drugs to try to calm and comfort patients who had nearly reached their limit....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/20/us/20doctor.html?hp&ex=1153454400&en=5a8725f594241a17&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[hlthe2b]

1. Many of us were monitoring the internet cross talk on this

live as it happened (as there were some cell text messages from desperate health care workers being posted on various websites during those fateful days. From what that information, I am convinced his truly was a mercy action). These charges outrage me. I wish I were on her jury. It is the Bush administration who should face charges... Not these compassionate workers who were left with few choices.

[aquart]

3. God, I remember that. They were BEGGING.

[hlthe2b]

4. Absolutely.... if I had several hours to spare...

I'd do a major search to see what if any of these old links we posted might still be active...

However, I suspect many are gone to avoid being drawn into a court proceeding?

[aquart]

2. I would never convict her.

Die in agony or die in peace. Does anyone really think "live" was an option?

Nice of her supporters to try and spin it. WE left those people to die. Nothing can spin the shame of what we did to New Orleans.