CNN - Anderson Cooper is covering Mercy Killings in NO Hospital

[RamboLiberal]

I tuned in late at 10PM EDT and he was covering then. Sounds like he's going to repeat the story now at 11PM EDT. Also the CNN site has a video link up. I'm on dialup, so I can't view it now.

Memorial Hospital - CNN investigation reveals Doctors and Nurses openly discussed mercy killings. Doctor Bryant King is convinced it went beyond talk. LA attorney general investigating. There may be manslaughter charges. King was approached 9am Thur during hurricane by another doctor(she) about putting people out of their misery. King dismissed at the time, but 3 hour laters there was an uneasy quiet. Triage area had been cleared. An admin wanted to know if they wanted to join in prayer. Someone had a handful of syringes. Don't know what was in syringes. King left the hospital shortly thereafter. King says that only 3 died initially, but then Thur to Fri there were 10 times the death. Doctor holding the syringes spoke to CNN and said they felt abandoned. That maybe some mistakes were made but they did the best they could at the time.

[RamboLiberal]

1. Now talking to LA Attorney General

He is investigating and expects to wrap it up in 2 weeks. Also investigating other hospitals and nursing homes. He's suspicious that so many died at the same time. He's reconstructing the timeline. Were they not natural deaths. He's looking for witnesses.

[pstans]

2. Need to photoshop Bu$h holding a syringe

[sproutster]

3. After my experience with a co-worker today

I'm sure it will be spun as "mercy." Ooopsi on anything found otherwise. We should all be sympathetic because those in power or authority were facing ... EVERYTHING THEIR VICTIMS DID.

I AM MAD!!!

[RamboLiberal]

4. I looked up story I remembered posted on DU

KATRINA DOCTORS: WE KILLED PATIENTS
Medics tell of trauma
By Stephen White
DESPERATE doctors killed their own patients rather than let them die in agony in the face of Hurricane Katrina.

As law and order fell apart in New Orleans, medics were forced to carry out mercy killings on people they knew couldn't make it out alive.

William McQueen, who works for the local authority in Abita Springs, said: "Those who had no chance of making it were given a lot of morphine and laid down in a dark place to die."

One New Orleans doctor is reported to have asked God for "mercy on her soul". She said: "I injected morphine into patients dying and in agony.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=15958127&method=full&siteid=66633&headline=katrina-doctors--we-killed-patients--name_page.html

[RamboLiberal]

5. CNN has posted the story

Three days after Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans, staff members at the city's Memorial Medical Center had repeated discussions about euthanizing patients they thought might not survive the ordeal, according to a doctor and nurse manager who were in the hospital at the time.

The Louisiana attorney general's office is investigating allegations that mercy killings occurred and has requested that autopsies be performed on all 45 bodies taken from the hospital after the storm.

Orleans Parish coroner Frank Minyard said investigators have told him they think euthanasia may have been committed.

"They thought someone was going around injecting people with some sort of lethal medication," Minyard said. (Watch the report on possible euthanasia in New Orleans)

Dr. Bryant King, who was working at Memorial when conditions were at their worst, told CNN that while he did not witness any acts of euthanasia, "most people know something happened that shouldn't have happened."

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/10/12/katrina.hospital/index.html

[nvliberal]

6. Let's call it by its right name,

and that's murder.

[blonndee]

7. HOW is it murder if it's by request? n/t

[RamboLiberal]

8. I don't think all the patients were requesting it

It's murder - but IMHO it's murder committed by Bush who was too busy photo-opping and vacationing to give a damn and by the inept Chertoff and Brownie - they sure did a "heckuva job". Those 3 should be indicted as accomplices.

[blonndee]

9. Oh, of course they're responsible.

But IMO, it's not murder if it was requested, nor is it murder (again, IMO) if these people were already "dying and in agony." I don't want any of those doctors or nurses brought up on charges if this was the situation. Or, maybe it would be good if they were...so that the "euthanasia" debate can come more to light again. The Schiavo case showed how most Americans feel about right to die, and something like this could help spur legal change w/this issue.

Thanks for the link and info.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. Ok as I posted in the LBN thread

this is triage, the side of triage nobody talks about

So let me ask all of you

1.- How many of you have ever done Emergency Medicine (I have)

2.- tell me did I murder this kid? Let me set it up for ya ok....

Call comes in, train derailment, we are dispatched with a convoy of only 10 ambulances, developing world country that is all I had... On arrival we find a scene of chaos. I am the senior Medical Responder, my job is to decide who lives and who dies... I am the triage officer. I take my tags out, find kid, two years old, agonal respiration, fixed and dilated pupils, and what looked like major head trauma. I took the tag and cut it to black... unsalvageable... besides her is a 65 year old male, with a nasty femur fracture, he got triaged as red, critical (those can go south fairly fast in the field) and quickly screamed to my EMTs to start taking care of this gentleman. I went on, triaging another two patients ad DOA... and on my next turn the kid had ceased breathing, I closed her eyes... those green eyes still pursue me.

SO I will ask... did I kill that kid? Or did my actions ensured that more lives were saved that otherwise would not.

By the way, the ugly side of disaster and wartime medicine, nobody likes to speak of it is... sometimes you use drugs, in the hospital setting... and THINK of the horrors they were facing. They should have never faced that choice, never... and if the DA goes after them, it is time for every emergency worker in the US to hand their shingle... what tells them that next time they triage somebody who is still breathing as un salvageable, they will not be cared off to jail? And is the DA also going after the DMAT team for following Protocol?