Employees and patients of Memorial Medical Center being evacuated two days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans.
From the New York Times as shown above came a story regarding the investigation into the euthanizing of patients in Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans during the hurricane Katrina disaster. Doctors have admitted to overdosing patients with morphine who had "do not resuscitate" orders or who were not expected to recover to free up resources and staff.
On the surface this seems unconscionable; however on the battlefield or during disasters, decisions have to be made that are not always pleasant. Doctors, responders, and medic must decide how to use resources wisely. Those of us who watched M.A.S.H. on tv got an peek at what goes on around the world on a daily basis. Although the show was comedy, it did have a serious side and basis in truth. When doctors and nurses triage patients during war, the same type of decisions are made. Limited resources have to be considered carefully, and those resources are going to be used on those who are younger or less severely injured or ill or with the greatest chance of making a full recovery.
One of the patients at Memorial Medical was a dying, unconsious 79-years-old with cancer in kidney failure with a DNR order. This patient wasn't expected to survive more than another day or two at best. Four nurses were required to care for this patient. The patient's estimated weight was 350 pounds due to fluid buildup. It was not possible to move the patient under the circumstances with no electricity to use elevators. I wouldn't want to be in the doctor's shoes, but I understand what he was faced with and why he chose to hasten death for this patient.
This story is talking about the same kind of "rationed care" that is being debated nationally. This is a classic example of what we may be facing if nationalized health care becomes a reality.
4 comments:
The Times story says that a doctor and some nurses during Katrina weren't prosecuted for killing patients even though they admitted it. Maybe I misunderstood but they were cleared a couple years ago. Looks to me like this is under investigation again for some reason.
I hope they are not under reinvestiation orders. There is always some uneducated person who wants to second guess the events of a crisis.
As far as connecting those events to the currently proposed healthcare plan, that behavior goes on all over the country now. Take Kaiser, or welfare, anytime you change the patient doctor relationsip away from profit driven, it becomes a factory. End of story.......Doctoring is a business, a compassionanate one, but still a living must be made, the events of Katrina are outside the norm in a non war climate and should stay there. I don't want the new health care but I don't believe the garbage about death panels...... The worst example of medical care can be found in situations where the choice of caregiver has been removed.
Dave,
It looks like this was reopened purely for political reasons. I expect nothing will really be made of it. They can't go back and re-prosecute the first batch of doctors and nurses unless they can come up with new charges based on the second group.
This just plain stinks. I'm not sure I do agree with what the doctors ordered--the injections. Pull the life-supporting efforts. That I can understand and agree with. Injecting someone with the sole intent of killing them is murder.
Hey Happy,
Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was the one who coined the phrase "death panel" on her Facebook page or on Twitter. She was referring to the potential lack of medical care for her baby son with Down Syndrome.
Hope you read my very long posting on Dr. Emanuel for info regarding why Sarah Palin made the comment. It might change your mind about those death panels.
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