Palmo Anest

Is Dr. Anna Pou and her nurses murderers?

CNN has this report:

'They pretended they were God'
Doctor, 2 nurses allegedly killed patients with lethal drug dose

The alleged killings taking place in the desperate days after hurricane Katrina struck, at New Orleans Memorial Medical Center. Louisiana's Attorney General Charles C. Foti Jr. announcing second-degree murder allegations against Dr. Anna Pou, Lori L. Budo and Cheri Landry.

An affidavit said tests determined that a lethal amount of morphine was administered on September 1 to four patients ages 62, 66, 89 and 90.

Hurricane Katrina struck New Orlean city on August 29 2005.

This is a slap in the face for all doctors and health care providers who work sincerely. Particularly those staid back in New Orlean city to treat and care for their patients instead of evacuate to save grounds like many others... Even the American govt abandoned them for the first few days when the hurricane struck.

According to the court document, the morphine was paired with midazolam hydrochloride. Taken together, Foti (the AG) said, they become "a lethal cocktail that guarantees that you die."

Well, well... looks who's talking! And it's in a court document somemore! Go to any hospital and you'd found doctors using combination of midazolam and morphine. Majority of my patients in ICU are on these two combination.

Rick Simmons, Pou's attorney, issued a statement saying his client "is innocent of the charges and we intend to vigorously contest them." He also criticized how the arrest was handled. "I told them that she is not a flight risk. I told them that she would surrender herself," he told CNN. "Instead, they chose to arrest her in her scrubs so that they could present her scalp to the media."

This is what another critical care physician wrote in TIME commenting about the arrest:

...we did our best to make sure that when these patients died, they died with dignity and as comfortably as possible. Versed and morphine are appropriate drugs to ease suffering at the end of life in such a situation. Versed relieves anxiety and gives patients amnesia for events so they don't have horrible recollections of frightening events. Morphine is used to relieve pain. The combination is not some witch's brew, as was inferred during the press conference announcing the arrests. At the end of life we want to make sure that the experience is as comfortable as it can be. If a patient’s attention is focused on pain, he or she might miss an opportunity for closure.

The major difference between comfort care and euthanasia or murder is intent. In a dying patient, giving sedatives and pain killers with the intent to cause death would be considered euthanasia or murder, while giving the same drugs in the same dosages with the intent to relieve suffering would be considered good, compassionate medicine, even if death were to be a consequence. In the wake of Katrina if a patient had died in a hospital without evidence of having received comfort care, I would question that treatment.

.....

We don't know the whole story from all participants, including Dr. Pou and the nurses: what the conditions were like and what their intentions were. Until all the facts are known, it's wrong for the attorney general to act as if he's dealing with hardened criminals. He may very well be dealing with heroes.

The fact that this case even make it to the court is a black eye to medical care world wide!




ps: To add salt to the wound, CNN even so proudly display the note below:

Editor's Note: CNN, which broke the hospital deaths story, was nominated Tuesday for an Emmy in Outstanding Investigative Journalism: "Death at Memorial Hospital."

posted by LT @ 11:43 PM