Katrina Doc Not Prosecuted July 24, 2007
Posted by keepbreathing in Coming to an ER near you, Doctors, Katrina, criminal negligence, death, ethics, hospital, medical, medical ethics, medicine, patient safety, respiratory therapy.trackback
I was on CNN when I heard that Dr. Anna Pou, the doctor who helped euthanize some patients in the aftermath of Katrina, is not going to be prosecuted. A grand jury dropped the charges against her, allowing her and the nurses accused alongside her (who were immune to prosecution by way of cooperating with prosecutors) go free with no trial.
I think the people who rushed to judge these medical professionals have too much time on their hands and too little contact with reality. “Mercy Killing” is not something I would normally advocate, but the circumstances surrounding the incident were far from normal:
Patients, staff and their families rode out Katrina. But four days after the hurricane hit, despair was setting in. The hospital was surrounded by floodwater. There was no power or water, and the heat was stifling. Food was running low, and nurses were forced to fan patients by hand.
And in those circumstances, people expect what out of us? Without power or water, there is almost nothing that I can do to sustain somebody’s life. If it was 90 degrees and 95% humidity outside, and Our Lady was surrounded by floodwaters and we had no electricity or running water, I don’t think I would be able to do much for my patients. And after a certain point, when your patients are getting weaker and weaker and the medicine is running out, what do you do? How do you react when there’s no help on the way and no sign of relief from the hellish onslaught? Do you prolong their life and hope for the best, or do you help them to slip into dreams and hope for forgiveness?
Sometimes the kindest thing you can do for someone is to let them go. And I know that “helping them go” is different from “letting them go” in a number of very important and highly relevant ways. But considering the circumstances…what would you do? Without any pretenses or delusions of grandeur, what would you honestly do? What can you do?
Leave me a comment or send me an e-mail (anonymoustherapist at gmail dot com) with your thoughts. I’d love to see what people think about this.
It’s amazing that so many people have been so vocal condeming these people. I personally want to think that I would keep bagging for as long as it took but think of the meds. After four days without power there is no way to continue caring for many ICU patients. IV pump batteries just don’t last that long. I could bag until the cows come home but I would love to see a RN give Levophed or Diprivan by hand. I’m sure they held out hope as long as they could. I couldn’t imagine.
RT
I didn’t get the brunt of the shit from the Big K when she passed through - I missed the bus going out because I was in class and ran logistics every night for two weeks.
I will say that I think the staff was justified in what they did. Slipping into sleep is a hell of a lot better way to go then how some bought the farm in NOLA. Our choppers were coming back with holes in them - taking fire from the ground. You believe that shit? The water was rotten, filled with all sorts of gook. One of my friends got a real bad cut on her leg and had to wade through the water for half a mile and 6 hours later it looked horribly infected. I don’t know what the hell was floating in there and I dont want to know. I gave over 150 Hep vaccs and all the medics going in recieved prophylatic antiboitc doses going in.
Those nurses and doctors will live with what they had to do and I think that might be more punishment then anything we could bring down on them. I think they made the right choice, and I think I might’ve come to the same conclusion in that situation.
On the other hand, I hope they throw the book at the Nursing Home owners who abandoned thier residents before the storm - that’s criminally negligent, pure and simple.
-MM
What I’ve learned….You can’t please all of the people all of the time….so don’t try!
Focus on the here and now!
Always do your best!
Stay true to yourself
Learn to say when!
I lived in a small (very small) town in the Texas panhandle, I have 4 daughters who at that time were young. An ice storm hit and knocked out all the power for hundreds of miles…
I lived in a rental house on 1000 acres with the closest neighbor being 3 miles away and my main power line down and draped across my driveway. Our house was on a well and the well house was electric. I had only propane fuel in which I could cook on the gas stove and heat the home (luckily). No running water, freshly stocked refridgerator which meant I had to cook big meals fast and before darkness set in. I couldn’t drive anywhere because of the power line, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway because the nearest larger town was 35 miles away and they were also without power!
4 days went by, every day I phoned the power company, every day they claimed they were working on it! 4 girls with healthy bowels, healthy appetites and all addicted to nickolodeon, cartoon network and pbs television….! I was in a world of hurt!
Can’t do dishes, Can’t flush toilet, Can’t take a shower and no help from anyone because we knew no one in the small town. I worked 45 miles from where we lived. High stress, high anxiety, high frustration and we weren’t sick or ailing in health.
On the 5th day of the power outtage, some places were being restored finally and I called the power company, explained my situation again..not so nicely and threatened to drive over the power lines with my kids in the car! Power company didn’t like that, said they would have someone over that afternoon… LIE!
So, I called them up, told them very nicely that I would be driving over the powerline in about 5 minutes…packed up my kids, turned on the car, and put it in reverse only to be stopped by a state trooper and an ambulance carrying 30 gallon jugs of water for me to use to flush my toilets, water my kids and take showers…
After they brought all that into my house and were getting ready to leave, a big farm truck with a huge generator on a trailer arrived at my house…
These people I had never met in my life hooked me up with 5 hours of electricity and 30 gallons of water…
Still one problem! All of what was left of my food had spoiled or had been eaten…
So, I drove over the power line!
And I lived to tell about it!
I share this story with you because I’ve never been in a “national” emergency other than the great flood of 1993, so I don’t know what all that’s like, but when you have 4 girls 11, 7, 6 and 4 in my situation in 1999, by God, it’s a national emergency…but in no way could I ever fathom being ill and in a hospital enduring all of what Katrina had brought about
and finally after 14 days, our power was restored!
Then we moved to Missouri!
Wow, RT, that’s a tough one. I feel like I’d have to be in their shoes to see how I’d react. It wouldn’t be a decision I came to easily, and would hope that they had some frank discussion amongst themselves about all this entails, and what the final consequences could be
If, in the end, my patients were truly suffering, and I could not ease it?
Shudder.
I hate to even think it-
I’d do what I felt I had to. Whatever that is.
I agree with you. Sometimes there is nothing you can do, and letting somone go is merciful rather than merciless.
It must have been hell for them, and I don’t think that any of us can even begin to imagine what they all went through. If the charges were dropped, then obviously other people thought the same. Let’s leave Jerry Springer-type armchair justice to the talk shows!
I attended a talk by Dr. Paul Pepe (http://www.biotel.ws/bios/pepe.htm) at the EMS Today conference earlier this year. He said that in these major disasters that the ‘Standard of Care’ becomes ‘Sufficiency of Care’. I like anybody to show me how the standard of care would not change in such a setting. I believe that essentially, we would revert back to a triage (or never leave it to begin with) system, and we save who we can.
I absolutely think that they did the right thing. If things are that dire with no help in sight, then it’s better to make their passing as peaceful and as painless as possible. It’s the merciful thing to do, even if it’s the hardest decision to make.