The hunt for killer Docs during Katrina moves forward:

CNN: Doctor, nurses face Katrina murder charges

From Drew Griffin and Kathleen Johnston
CNN

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) — A doctor and two nurses have been charged with second-degree murder — the result of the Louisiana attorney general’s investigation into whether hospital staff euthanized some patients in the days after Hurricane Katrina.

Dr. Anna Pou, Lori L. Budo and Cheri Landry were arrested late Monday and charged with four counts of second-degree murder.

The charges stem from the deaths of some patients at New Orleans Memorial Medical Center after Hurricane Katrina hit. Sources told CNN the slayings were not mercy killlings [sic], but instead allegedly were carried out to speed evacuation of the hospital. …

No-one can condone ‘medical euthanasia’ in extreme situations like this. Fatigue and desperation don’t make for necessarily good judgement. I don’t know what happened, or more likely didn’t happen, there. Time will tell.

But, this article gives me some real pause:

Foti has been investigating for months whether hospital and medical staff euthanized some patients. He is expected to outline what he thinks happened to some of the 45 Memorial Hospital patients who were found dead after the August hurricane evacuations.

“We obviously think it’s a very credible … we spent a lot of time, energy and manpower working on this case … so we think it’s a good case,” Foti told CNN in February.

I trust this is just poor phraseology, and doesn’t mean ‘time spent = good case’.

In October, CNN reported exclusively that after deteriorating conditions — with food running low and no electricity — some medical staff openly discussed whether patients should be euthanized. …

Hmm, CNN also reported roving rape-gangs in the Superdome, dead piling-up etc. I don’t know if I’d be really proud of October Exclusive Reporting from New Orleans.

And here’s the part that really has me wondering:

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

So, if this case goes no-where, and is found to be groundless, will their Emmy nomination be forfeit? The real problem is that now CNN’s got a reason to keep this story going, real or imagined.

Update: after the above was posted, the article was changed, and it doesn’t make the LA AG look any smarter, to wit:

‘Lethal cocktail’

According to the court document, the morphine was paired with midazolam hydrochloride, known by its brand name Versed. Both drugs are central nervous system depressants. Taken together, Foti said, they become “a lethal cocktail that guarantees that you die.”

Uuh, no, they’re not an instant death cocktail when mixed. Alarming people about two medications that are routinely used together in medicine for conscious sedation in order to pump up your case is wrong, and stupid. I have used morphine and versed together several times and nobody died! The devil is in the dose, and the respiratory monitoring and support provided during the procedure.

…”a lethal cocktail that guarantees that you die…” is just idiotic hyperbole.

In the email today:

COMMON GOOD TESTIFIES AT HEARING IN U.S. HOUSE

OF REPRESENTATIVES, AS MOMENTUM CONTINUES TO BUILD

FOR THE CREATION OF SPECIAL HEALTH COURTS

New York, NY July 13, 2006 Common Good, the bipartisan legal reform coalition, announced that its general counsel Paul Barringer testified today at a hearing of the Subcommittee on Health of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce. The hearing focused on innovative solutions to medical liability, and Common Goods testimony addressed the need for special health courts.

The hearing followed soon after a similar hearing held last month by the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee. On that occasion, Common Goods Chair Philip K. Howard testified about health courts.
In the Senate, Michael Enzi (R-WY) and Max Baucus (D-MT) have introduced a bill to authorize and fund pilot health courts. In the House, Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX) has introduced similar legislation.

I’ll put the rest in the extended entry.

I’m guardedly in favor of these. More at Common Good.
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