← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Kevin_O'Keeffe
Thread ID: 20200 | Posts: 14 | Started: 2005-09-14
2005-09-14 00:41 | User Profile
[url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=361980]Daily Mail link[/url]
We had to kill our patients
by C AROLINE GRAHAM and JO KNOWSLEY, Mail on Sunday
09:01am 11th September 2005
New Orleans: Doctors forced to 'play God'
Doctors working in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans killed critically ill patients rather than leaving them to die in agony as they evacuated hospitals, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
With gangs of rapists and looters rampaging through wards in the flooded city, senior doctors took the harrowing decision to give massive overdoses of morphine to those they believed could not make it out alive.
In an extraordinary interview with The Mail on Sunday, one New Orleans doctor told how she 'prayed for God to have mercy on her soul' after she ignored every tenet of medical ethics and ended the lives of patients she had earlier fought to save.
Her heart-rending account has been corroborated by a hospital orderly and by local government officials. One emergency official, William 'Forest' McQueen, said: "Those who had no chance of making it were given a lot of morphine and lain down in a dark place to die."
Euthanasia is illegal in Louisiana, and The Mail on Sunday is protecting the identities of the medical staff concerned to prevent them being made scapegoats for the events of last week.
Their families believe their confessions are an indictment of the appalling failure of American authorities to help those in desperate need after Hurricane Katrina flooded the city, claiming thousands of lives and making 500,000 homeless.
'These people were going to die anyway'
The 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."
The doctor, who finally fled her hospital late last week in fear of being murdered by the armed looters, said: "This was not murder, this was compassion. They would have been dead within hours, if not days. We did not put people down. What we did was give comfort to the end.
"I had cancer patients who were in agony. In some cases the drugs may have speeded up the death process.
"We divided patients into three categories: those who were traumatised but medically fit enough to survive, those who needed urgent care, and the dying.
"People would find it impossible to understand the situation. I had to make life-or-death decisions in a split second.
"It came down to giving people the basic human right to die with dignity.
"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.
"The pharmacy was under lockdown because gangs of armed looters were roaming around looking for their fix. You have to understand these people were going to die anyway."
Mr McQueen, a utility manager for the town of Abita Springs, half an hour north of New Orleans, told relatives that patients had been 'put down', saying: "They injected them, but nurses stayed with them until they died."
Mr McQueen has been working closely with emergency teams and added: "They had to make unbearable decisions."
2005-09-14 03:24 | User Profile
We have a client who was working there, she told us last week about having to pump the folks full of morphine so that they wouldn't suffer. She was so torn up about it. But I think they did the right thing. What the hell else could they do with the animals trying to hurt them?
2005-09-14 03:25 | User Profile
I am speechless. Why isn't this headlining the news? Wait, I know why...
2005-09-14 06:01 | User Profile
Horrible - like those pictures of social disorder you read about in third world countries, but usually not too accurately, as you really don't want to go into too many of the gory details.
New Orleans - is it a microcosm of what will happen in America as a hole, as we become more 3rd worldish and more social breakdowns like this become inevitable? I'm afraid so.
2005-09-14 07:27 | User Profile
[QUOTE=BlueBonnet]We have a client who was working there, she told us last week about having to pump the folks full of morphine so that they wouldn't suffer. She was so torn up about it. But I think they did the right thing. What the hell else could they do with the animals trying to hurt them?[/QUOTE]I also think they did the right thing. I am very much against euthanasia if it's done without a patient's full and clear-headed consent, but in a situation like that described above, in which it's certain that a person is going to die in agony unless he or she is put down gently with morphine, the choice is emotionally difficult but logically clear. Better to die painlessly than in pain.
2005-09-14 08:50 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]I also think they did the right thing. I am very much against euthanasia if it's done without a patient's full and clear-headed consent, but in a situation like that described above, in which it's certain that a person is going to die in agony unless he or she is put down gently with morphine, the choice is emotionally difficult but logically clear. Better to die painlessly than in pain.[/QUOTE]But how do you know it was as described above? "Euthanasia" cloaks all sorts of motives. It can be legitimate concern such as you described, or it can also be one appreciative of the fact that the dead cannot talk, and be a witness of what went on in those final hours. Of course one can only imagine how horrible it would be to be in a place like that.
Its a little bit like being a medic in a combat situation. It's providing care in a situation basically outside the bounds of decency, morality and humanity. Its terrible what people who are untrained in such situations can do at such times.
I can only hope that it never happens to me, or you. And don't presume it won't they way things are going.
2005-09-14 16:28 | User Profile
We're all "going to die anyway".
2005-09-14 17:17 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust]But how do you know it was as described above? "Euthanasia" cloaks all sorts of motives. It can be legitimate concern such as you described, or it can also be one appreciative of the fact that the dead cannot talk, and be a witness of what went on in those final hours. Of course one can only imagine how horrible it would be to be in a place like that.
Its a little bit like being a medic in a combat situation. It's providing care in a situation basically outside the bounds of decency, morality and humanity. Its terrible what people who are untrained in such situations can do at such times.
I can only hope that it never happens to me, or you. And don't presume it won't they way things are going.[/QUOTE] I agree this was a extreme situation. She described the scene in that the waters were rising. they couldn't get the folks out, most of whom needed medical equipment with them whereever they were going. If this had been the only issue they wouldn't have done it. But, suddenly gangs of people would show up with guns, the broke in pointed guns at the staff, basically raping, plundering and pillaging. She said that they had sworn to take the best care of their patients as possible, but at that point the best thing they could do was pump up with morphine and pray.
2005-09-14 22:09 | User Profile
Isn't this a fairly common occurrance during war, when an invading army is in the process of seizing and capturing a city?
So much for the Boston Globe and their 'what seemed like looting and chaos ....except for a few bestial Europeans ransacking Walgreen...was merely Afrcan-Americans urging their companions not to loot and spread chaos'.
It's easy to pass judgment on these doctors and nurses. But had they fled and left their terminal patients to the bongoes, they'd be vilified by the Judenpresse right now.
If they had - does anyone doubt the authorities would have found cancer patients beaten to death and terminally-ill children leaking semen from their corpses?
2005-09-14 23:07 | User Profile
Under the circumstances, it would have been far better if this story had never seen the light of day. Once again, a Pandora's box has been opened.
2005-09-15 04:50 | User Profile
Amen, Deacon. :glare:
AE [QUOTE=Sertorius]Under the circumstances, it would have been far better if this story had never seen the light of day. Once again, a Pandora's box has been opened.[/QUOTE]
2005-09-15 05:59 | User Profile
[QUOTE=BlueBonnet]I agree this was a extreme situation. She described the scene in that the waters were rising. they couldn't get the folks out, most of whom needed medical equipment with them whereever they were going. If this had been the only issue they wouldn't have done it. But, suddenly gangs of people would show up with guns, the broke in pointed guns at the staff, basically raping, plundering and pillaging.[/QUOTE]Where were the police,BTW? Oh don't ask. They were probably some of the ones doing the pillaging.
2005-09-15 07:18 | User Profile
[QUOTE=il ragno]It's easy to pass judgment on these doctors and nurses. But had they fled and left their terminal patients to the bongoes, they'd be vilified by the Judenpresse right now.
If they had - [B]does anyone doubt the authorities would have found cancer patients beaten to death and terminally-ill children leaking semen from their corpses?[/B][/QUOTE]
Only fools, alas.
2005-09-16 05:11 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Okiereddust]Where were the police,BTW? Oh don't ask. They were probably some of the ones doing the pillaging.[/QUOTE] She said they couldn't get anyone to respond. They sent an orderly out to find help, any help. he never returned. They were out of their minds with fear.