Court Documents: Hospital Gave Lethal Injections to Patients During Hurric

[RamboLiberal]

Anyone know the accuracy of this site? Is it a right to life site? Anyone hear this on NPR?

Since CNN was also investigating the story and many of us who watched coverage from the hospitals during the disaster speculated about this, I thought I'd post this. We'll see if this is accurate in the coming weeks/months I guess.

http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/feb/06022201.html

NEW ORLEANS, February 22, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Just after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans rumors circulated that at least one hospital had euthanized patients during the mayhem. LifeSiteNews.com reported in September 2005, that an unnamed doctor admitted to a UK newspaper that such activities had taken place at Memorial Medical Center

In October another doctor at the hospital confirmed in a CNN interview that he suspected such activities and admitted he left the hospital saying he would rather abandon patients than actively kill them. Later in October hospital workers were subpoenaed for an investigation.

National Public Radio now reports on its access to court documents in the case. In a February 16 report, NPR says it has reviewed secret court documents related to the investigation and not yet released to the public. The documents, says NPR "reveal chilling details about events at Memorial hospital in the chaotic days following the storm, including hospital administrators who saw a doctor filling syringes with painkillers and heard plans to give patients lethal doses. The witnesses also heard staff discussing the agonizing decision to end patients' lives."

The allegations revolve around a group of patients left on the seventh floor at Memorial Medical Center. This floor was leased to a different entity, LifeCare Hospitals. According to NPR, the patients on the seventh floor were all DNR patients -- they had "do not resuscitate" orders.

The report describes the deplorable conditions in the hospital which was left without power, without sewage removal facilities, and in soaring temperatures with looters attempting to enter the hospital.

[napi21]

1. Well, I don't know if this is true or not, but if I was one of those

patients, I would have welcomed the lethal shot! I can't swim, and the last thing I'd want to do is drown!

[lostnfound]

2. This may be immoral but...

it absolutely disgusts me that the powers-that-be might prosecute doctors and second-guess their compassionate judgment during the most horrific and extraordinary circumstances,

while the powers-that-be negligently if not intentionally magnified the horror of those circumstances by failing to use all possible means to rescue and support these people in a desparate situation.

[tanyev]

3. "He would rather abandon patients than actively kill them"

In that situation, abandoning the patients would have killed them.

[Libby2]

4. What a travesty that they

were even put in that position.

[Warpy]

5. Yes, this is a "right to life" site, all the antiabortion stuff is a dead

giveaway to where they're at.

Yes, they will try to sue doctors and nurses who used their best judgment and made their patients as comfortable as possible with heavy doses of opiates and benzodiazepines while they drowned in their own secretions because Chertoff's FEMA was treating NO like a contagion site rather than a natural disaster site, blockading fuel from reaching generators.

These people are the ones who want us to wring every last bit of misery out of life so they'll feel better about being such bitter, unpleasant people.

My curse for these people is that they spend their last six weeks in an ICU, surrounded by family members mumbling prayers and insisting that every last bit of painful technology is used to prolong their deaths.

And yes, this makes me very angry.

[Scout1071]

6. I think I would need more info before I judge these doctors.

If they are talking about injecting late stage Alzheimer's patients or similarly impaired (physically and mentally) patients who will never get better and will only get worse, then I really don't have as much of a problem. It may sound cold, but putting them out of their misery before they drown may actually have been the humane thing to do.

No judgement until we have the facts.