NPR report on Katrina euthanasia cases

[hedgehog]

Did anyone else hear the report tonight on All Things Considered? It was absolutely heart breaking and infuriating. The gist of the story is that this woman was forced from her mother's bed side by three armed policemen so that her mother could be put down with a lethal dose of morphine as the hospital was abandoned. This happened several days AFTER the hurricane struck New Orleans. Seems that the Bush administration has plenty of time and money to listen in on phone calls and check e-mail but couldn't communicate with the doctors and nurses in a hospital in the middle of a major American city!

[nofurylike]

1. speechless grief. K&R

[Warpy]

2. Homeland security turned away trucks carrying diesel fuel

that would have kept hospital generators running to provide the electricity to run the machines that would have kept these people alive. Docs and nurses on disaster teams were kept outside the city and away from providing relief to hospital workers who went days without rest. Water trucks were turned away.

This whole mess belongs squarely on Chertoff's shoulders, along with all his band of merry pranksters who converted FEMA from a disaster relief agency to a containment agency for some fantasy of a contagious bio attack. Oh, his boss gets a great deal of blame, too, for his "hands off" management style that allowed these boobs to run amok in these agencies, destroying them.

It's amazing that these men are still in power. GOP party loyalty is scary.