Doctor Admits Euthanizing Patient During Hurricane Katrina

[bijou]

NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 31, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A doctor has admitted that he gave orders for a lethal dose of medication to be administered to a patient under his care during the hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005 - a decision that he says he does not regret having made.

Dr. Ewing Cook said that as staff at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans were struggling to evacuate patients from the flooded building, he gave the order to give Jannie Burgess, 79, who was dying of uterine cancer and kidney failure, a dose of morphine that he knew would kill her.

"Do you mind just increasing the morphine and giving her enough until she goes?" Cook said he asked the patient's nurse, and then wrote "Pronounced dead at" on the patient's chart and left it blank to be filled in later. ...Dr. Anna Pou, a surgeon who specializes in working with cancer patients, and nurses Cheri Landry and Lori Budo, who had admitted to administering lethal doses of medication to patients during the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, were offered immunity from prosecution by Attorney General Foti, before testifying to a Grand Jury that four patients died after being administered what Foti called a "lethal cocktail" of drugs.

Dr. Pou denied the charges, insisting that she did not support euthanasia and claimed to have given only comfort care for the patients.

However, court documents asserted that witnesses had testified that Dr. Pou and the two nurses took syringes full of drugs to a ward for the chronically-ill and injected four patients. Thirty-four patients died in Memorial Medical Center following the Katrina disaster, more than in any comparable-sized hospital in the drowned city. ....

link

[Eupher]

Murder is murder, no matter what the circumstances. And there's no statute of limitations.

[thundley4]

Murder is murder, no matter what the circumstances. And there's no statute of limitations.

But, but, it was a matter of convenience. They MIGHT have died anyway while being evacuated. [/DUMode]

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

The nurse was obligated to refuse the order.

[NHSparky]

And if he/she didn't, then that makes the nurse an accessory to murder.

[Chris_]

This will be S.O.P. if BHO gets his way.  If you are too old and sick to vote, you're of no use.
 

[thundley4]

This will be S.O.P. if BHO gets his way.  If you are too old and sick to vote, you're of no use.
 

No one is too old or sick to vote.  I've read stories of relatives filling out absentee ballots for relatives in nursing homes.

[JohnnyReb]

I read this yesterday but witheld my comment so I could think about this one awhile. Cancer patients in the later stages can now get high doses of Morphine, all they want. That was not always so and people suffered a lot before they died. One of the side effects of massive Morphine doses is kidney failure. They monitor kidney function of patients on Morphine. This is how hey can tell to within hours of when a cancer patient is going to die. This old woman was probably just a day or maybe hours away from dying. With the hurricane damage and all, the doctor probably had his/her hands full with emergencies and didn't want the old woman to suffer needlessly. So he/she did the right thing and made sure the old woman got all she needed and now it's come back to bite them in the ass.

I think someone smells money here and don't care whose life they ruin to get it.

[Chris_]

No one is too old or sick to vote.  I've read stories of relatives filling out absentee ballots for relatives in nursing homes.

Oh that's right.     If you vote dim, you can do so post mortem.

[vesta111]

I read this yesterday but witheld my comment so I could think about this one awhile. Cancer patients in the later stages can now get high doses of Morphine, all they want. That was not always so and people suffered a lot before they died. One of the side effects of massive Morphine doses is kidney failure. They monitor kidney function of patients on Morphine. This is how hey can tell to within hours of when a cancer patient is going to die. This old woman was probably just a day or maybe hours away from dying. With the hurricane damage and all, the doctor probably had his/her hands full with emergencies and didn't want the old woman to suffer needlessly. So he/she did the right thing and made sure the old woman got all she needed and now it's come back to bite them in the ass.

I think someone smells money here and don't care whose life they ruin to get it.

Interesting Johnny, I have worked at nursing homes where a patient is suffering and life is slipping away.  Some Homes will SNOW the patient, give them very high doses of pain Meds that cause them to sleep and die with dignity .

To put this in perspective for us who never had to deal with all this.

One night my little dog began to howl long and loud.  We on checking him out found one side of his mouth was swollen big time.  The 14 year old dog had an abscessed tooth that was so painfull he was shrieking in pain.  We were at the vets the next morning bright and early--the pain must have been dreadfully.

Now had we been in the middle of a storm and knew it would be 36 hours till we could get care, I myself would have shot my dog  No human or animal should go thought that amount of pain for hours at a time.

We ended up spending $900.00 to have all his teeth pulled.   All that money for an old dog, well we kind of like the old boy, and we had the money at that time.

Had we been broke and not able to get him medical care, he would have been put down.

Can we do that with humans, I have no idea at this time in history, 200 year ago it would be doing a favor to those Gut Shot.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

You're comparing a dog to a human?

Well, at least now we know the value of YOUR life...

...and we shall gauge our decisions accordingly.

I read this yesterday but witheld my comment so I could think about this one awhile. Cancer patients in the later stages can now get high doses of Morphine, all they want. That was not always so and people suffered a lot before they died. One of the side effects of massive Morphine doses is kidney failure. They monitor kidney function of patients on Morphine. This is how hey can tell to within hours of when a cancer patient is going to die. This old woman was probably just a day or maybe hours away from dying. With the hurricane damage and all, the doctor probably had his/her hands full with emergencies and didn't want the old woman to suffer needlessly. So he/she did the right thing and made sure the old woman got all she needed and now it's come back to bite them in the ass.

I think someone smells money here and don't care whose life they ruin to get it.

It is not the doctor's place to make such decisions exclusively within his own private judgment against a patient unable to speak for themself. What line do we draw? There is a reason why civilized societies do not allow private citizens to hold personal power over the life and death of others. The fact that he had a higher education when making his personal choice for another human being does not mitigate his diktat one iota.

Imagine a Poli-Sci professor suddenly deciding citizen X did not deserve the right to vote because the remoteness and and obscurity of the citizen's political life did not warrant further consideration. Loss of a vote is decidedly not lethal yet the outrage would be as furious as it would be justified because it would spell a harbinger for greater tyrannies.

[JohnnyReb]

You're comparing a dog to a human?

Well, at least now we know the value of YOUR life...

...and we shall gauge our decisions accordingly.



It is not the doctor's place to make such decisions exclusively within his own private judgment against a patient unable to speak for themself. What line do we draw? There is a reason why civilized societies do not allow private citizens to hold personal power over the life and death of others. The fact that he had a higher education when making his personal choice for another human being does not mitigate his diktat one iota.

Imagine a Poli-Sci professor suddenly deciding citizen X did not deserve the right to vote because the remoteness and and obscurity of the citizen's political life did not warrant further consideration. Loss of a vote is decidedly not lethal yet the outrage would be as furious as it would be justified because it would spell a harbinger for greater tyrannies.

I was just stating that one of the side effects of large doses of Morphine is kidney failure. The old woman was already on Morphine and maybe the doctor was just making sure she continued to get what she needed. ...and at the point she was, already accustom to Morphine what would be an overdose for you and me would only be enough to dull or mute her pain.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

I was just stating that one of the side effects of large doses of Morphine is kidney failure. The old woman was already on Morphine and maybe the doctor was just making sure she continued to get what she needed. ...and at the point she was, already accustom to Morphine what would be an overdose for you and me would only be enough to dull or mute her pain.

But sir, the first 3 paragraphs say flat out the doctor knew he was going to kill her and had every deliberate intnetion of doing so:

NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 31, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A doctor has admitted that he gave orders for a lethal dose of medication to be administered to a patient under his care during the hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005 - a decision that he says he does not regret having made.

Dr. Ewing Cook said that as staff at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans were struggling to evacuate patients from the flooded building, he gave the order to give Jannie Burgess, 79, who was dying of uterine cancer and kidney failure, a dose of morphine that he knew would kill her.

"Do you mind just increasing the morphine and giving her enough until she goes?" Cook said he asked the patient's nurse, and then wrote "Pronounced dead at" on the patient's chart and left it blank to be filled in later.



And morphine is not exactly a drug you can pre-emptively administer. "Here, let us juice you up a little extra to make sure it carries you through."

M-m-m...not so much.

[Splashdown]

Interesting Johnny, I have worked at nursing homes where a patient is suffering and life is slipping away.  Some Homes will SNOW the patient, give them very high doses of pain Meds that cause them to sleep and die with dignity .

To put this in perspective for us who never had to deal with all this.

One night my little dog began to howl long and loud.  We on checking him out found one side of his mouth was swollen big time.  The 14 year old dog had an abscessed tooth that was so painfull he was shrieking in pain.  We were at the vets the next morning bright and early--the pain must have been dreadfully.

Now had we been in the middle of a storm and knew it would be 36 hours till we could get care, I myself would have shot my dog  No human or animal should go thought that amount of pain for hours at a time.

We ended up spending $900.00 to have all his teeth pulled.   All that money for an old dog, well we kind of like the old boy, and we had the money at that time.

Had we been broke and not able to get him medical care, he would have been put down.

Can we do that with humans, I have no idea at this time in history, 200 year ago it would be doing a favor to those Gut Shot.

All due respect, that argument is stupid. Say you have a baby who's howling because of croup or cholic or some other kind of pain, and you can't get to a doctor for a day. Do you euthanize the baby?

[AllosaursRus]

You're comparing a dog to a human?

Well, at least now we know the value of YOUR life...

...and we shall gauge our decisions accordingly.



It is not the doctor's place to make such decisions exclusively within his own private judgment against a patient unable to speak for themself. What line do we draw? There is a reason why civilized societies do not allow private citizens to hold personal power over the life and death of others. The fact that he had a higher education when making his personal choice for another human being does not mitigate his diktat one iota.

Imagine a Poli-Sci professor suddenly deciding citizen X did not deserve the right to vote because the remoteness and and obscurity of the citizen's political life did not warrant further consideration. Loss of a vote is decidedly not lethal yet the outrage would be as furious as it would be justified because it would spell a harbinger for greater tyrannies.

Sorry Snuggle, I have to disagree on this one. Having just been thru my Brother's death do to liver cancer, I sure as hell would not have wanted him to drown. My Brother was actually at home on hospice care. His last days got to the point where there was no such thing as "enough" morphine. Thankfully, he eventually died in his sleep. The last 2 weeks were a living hell for both us and him.

Given the emergency situation they were in in NO, I'm not sure the Doc did not make the best decision for his patient. Moving him/her, might have been worse than death when you are in the final stages.

Given that, I doubt, without more facts, I or anyone else, could condemn the Doc.

As far as the patient needing to make the decision, my Brother didn't know what planet he was on due to the pain and the medication. Hardly in any shape in order to make any decision whatsoever. If I had been in that situation, I'm sure I would have agreed with the Doc.

edited to add coment

[Chris_]

The Hippocratic Oath:

I swear by Apollo, the healer, Asclepius, Hygieia, and Panacea, and I take to witness all the gods, all the goddesses, to keep according to my ability and my judgment, the following Oath and agreement:
To consider dear to me, as my parents, him who taught me this art; to live in common with him and, if necessary, to share my goods with him; To look upon his children as my own brothers, to teach them this art.

I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.

I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion.

But I will preserve the purity of my life and my arts.

I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art.

In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction and especially from the pleasures of love with women or with men, be they free or slaves.

All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal.

If I keep this oath faithfully, may I enjoy my life and practice my art, respected by all men and in all times; but if I swerve from it or violate it, may the reverse be my lot.

Seems like the doc forgot something.

[AllosaursRus]

I don't think, since this oath came into being, that a doctor has not crossed the line. I don't think it ever took into account the technology in treating various fatal diseases. If they knew then what they know now, me thinks the oath might be a little different.

Actually, I think you could use our Constitution in the same pretext. If the Founding Fathers had any idea of what future politicians would try to do, they certainly would have tried to close all the loop holes the liberals are trying to use now.

edited for comparison

[Hawkgirl]

No one is too old or sick to vote.  I've read stories of relatives filling out absentee ballots for relatives in nursing homes.

There are plenty of dead people that voted last election, thanks to ACORN.