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Doctors: Hurricane Katrina Forced Us to Kill Patients

 
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shawa
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Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 2004

PostPosted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 4:03 am    Post subject: Doctors: Hurricane Katrina Forced Us to Kill Patients Reply with quote

First the sad story from AP:
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/09/12/D8CITBVO0.html
Quote:
45 Bodies Found at New Orleans Hospital
Sep 12 3:24 PM US/Eastern
NEW ORLEANS

Forty-five bodies have been found at a hospital that was abandoned more than a week ago after it was surrounded by floodwaters unleashed by Hurricane Katrina, a state health official said Monday.

The bodies were located Sunday at Memorial Medical Center, said Bob Johannesen, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Hospitals. Johannesen said the bodies were those of patients, but he had no other information.

The Louisiana death toll rose to 279 on Monday, up from 197 on Sunday, Johannesen said.

On Sunday, reporters were kept at a distance from Memorial Medical by law enforcement officers as workers removed bodies from the hospital, situated in the city's Uptown section.

The 317-bed hospital, owned by TenetHealthcare Corp., remained closed Monday and was still partially surrounded by floodwaters.



But this is just mind-boggling!!
I cannot bring myself to make a judgement on what was done, apparently out of compassion. But MY GOD, what a horrific decision to have to make!!

NEWSMAX
Quote:
Doctors: Hurricane Katrina Forced Us to Kill Patients
NewsMax.com
Monday, Sept. 12, 2005

Doctors working in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans killed critically ill patients rather than leave them behind to die in agony as they evacuated hospitals, according to a shocking report in the respected British newspaper the Daily Mail.

One emergency official who spoke on the record, William "Forest" McQueen, told the Mail: "Those who had no chance of making it were given a lot of morphine and lain down in a dark place to die."

McQueen, a utility manager for the town of Abita Springs near New Orleans, told relatives that patients had been "put down," saying medical personnel "injected them, but nurses stayed with them until they died."
The Mail did not name the other members of the medical staff interviewed by the newspaper in order to protect their identities. Euthanasia is illegal in Louisiana.

One doctor said: "I didn't know if I was doing the right thing. But I did not have time. I had to make snap decisions, under the most appalling circumstances, and I did what I thought was right.

"I injected morphine into those patients who were dying and in agony. If the first dose was not enough, I gave a double dose. And at night I prayed to God to have mercy on my soul.

"This was not murder. This was compassion. I had cancer patients who were in agony."

The doctor said medical staffers divided patients into three categories: those who were medically fit enough to survive, those who needed urgent care, and the dying, the Mail reported.

"It came down to giving people the basic human right to die with dignity," said the doctor.

"There were patients with ‘Do Not Resuscitate' signs. Under normal circumstances, some could have lasted several days. But when the power went out, we had nothing.

"Some of the very sick became distressed. We tried to make them as comfortable as possible.

"You have to understand, these people were going to die anyway." According to the Mail, the confessions of the medical staff "are an indictment of the appalling failure of American authorities to help those in desperate need after Hurricane Katrina flooded the city."

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blue9t3
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Joined: 23 Aug 2004
Posts: 1246
Location: oregon

PostPosted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 4:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Shawa, keep it tight. Until we know the story it wont make sence. Its hard to tell untill all the cards are out, lets all see! Crying or Very sad
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LewWaters
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Joined: 18 May 2004
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Location: Washington State

PostPosted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 6:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

If this proves out true, it's a very sad commentary on our society. While we may look at this as compassionate, compare it to a recent appeal on Free Republic for the saving of dogs running wild and possibly diseased.

If we have gotten to the point that a dogs life is more valuable than a humans, we are in deeper trouble than I ever imagined.
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MrJapan
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Joined: 27 Sep 2004
Posts: 465
Location: Chiba, Japan

PostPosted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 12:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The doctors took an oath to never harm a living being and to try their hardest to save them....
I agree to not jump the gun... but this could turn out to be outragious.. and cost a feew doctors their Bar License..
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Anker-Klanker
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Joined: 04 Sep 2004
Posts: 1033
Location: Richardson, TX

PostPosted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 2:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'd be very, very careful about reacting to this one. The press has been falling all over itself to come up with more sensational headlines that have nothing to do with truth. This smells like it might be another one.

BTW, that hospital had a morgue. Some of those bodies were of people who died before the storm. I don't know how many. But you'll not read a thing about that fact while the MSM is still in their Bush-Hating feeding frenzy.
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Me#1You#10
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Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 6503

PostPosted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 6:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Anker-Klanker wrote:
But you'll not read a thing about that fact while the MSM is still in their Bush-Hating feeding frenzy.


I can understand your skepticism, but this is from today's NY Times. Perhaps the "feeding frenzy" is abating and some reality has taken hold...
(emphasis mine)

Quote:
45 Bodies Are Found in a New Orleans Hospital
By KIRK JOHNSON
Published: September 13, 2005

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 12 - The bodies of 45 people have been found in a flooded uptown hospital here, officials said Monday, sharply increasing the death toll from Hurricane Katrina and raising new questions about the breakdown of the evacuation system as the disaster unfolded.

Officials at the hospital, the Memorial Medical Center, said at least some of the victims died while waiting to be removed in the four days after the hurricane struck, with the electricity out and temperatures exceeding 100 degrees.

Steven L. Campanini, a spokesman for the hospital's owner, Tenet Healthcare, said the dead included patients who died awaiting evacuation as well as people who died before the hurricane struck and whose bodies were in the hospital morgue.

Mr. Campanini said the dead might have also included evacuees from other hospitals and the surrounding neighborhood who gathered at Memorial while waiting to evacuate the city.


NY Times - cont'd
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Anker-Klanker
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Joined: 04 Sep 2004
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Location: Richardson, TX

PostPosted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 8:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks. I've also read that some of those people were on life-support machines who died when the power was lost.

There are other stories "out there" that I think are likely to be debunked soon, so I'll not give them any credibility here.

Except for those who were already dead and in the morgue before the storm, there's still no excuse for their having to die because they were weren't evacuated - which was part of the NO Disaster Plan that wasn't implemented.
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Armybrat/Armymom
Commander


Joined: 27 Aug 2004
Posts: 335
Location: Central Texas

PostPosted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 9:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

MrJapan wrote:
The doctors took an oath to never harm a living being and to try their hardest to save them....
I agree to not jump the gun... but this could turn out to be outragious.. and cost a feew doctors their Bar License..


I don't blame the doctors. It's Blanco and Nagin's shame to bear.
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carpro
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Joined: 10 May 2004
Posts: 1176
Location: Texas

PostPosted: Tue Sep 13, 2005 9:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The responsibility for this debacle lies directly at the feet of a mayor and a governor who failed to take care of their citizens. Hospitals and nursing homes should have been completed evacuated at least 48 hours prior to thr arrival of the storm. Their most helpless constituents were left to die.


This is criminal.
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DLI78
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Joined: 10 Nov 2004
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 14, 2005 3:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wait a minute!!!!

You mean to tell me it isn't Presiden't Bush's responsibility to know that New Orleans wasn't following it's own evacuation plan? It isn't his responsibility to know that those buses were sitting in a parking lot instead of moving out the poor and infirm ahead of a huge storm (like just about any halfwit would think to do)?

Why haven't I heard any of this on See BS and that Fonda News Network that Ted Turner started?

Hmmmmm! Isn't he responsible for knowing how many cans of food and bottles of water I have stored in my kitchen in case of disaster (and giving more if I am short of the plan)?

Then protecting myself and my family would be..... MY responsibility? No! Say it isn't so.
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