Mayhem, Murder, and Medicine

as we near the 5 year anniversary of the devastation of hurricane katrina, news stories and remembrances are popping up. above is a very tragic tale of desperate measures taken during the throws of hurricane katrina and the subsequent legal battle over suspicious deaths of patients. at one of the new orleans hospitals, apparently some 9 patients were not going to be able to be moved/evacuated, presumably because of their degree of dependence (i'm guessing ventilator patients? it never says), and so were given toxic doses of narcotics to facilitate death by the remaining staff physician and pharmacist.

i am dismayed, but not shocked for several reasons. i'm also not entirely sure it was the wrong choice by the caregivers...

during katrina in 2005, i lived in a small town in mississippi, about 3 hrs north of the coast. the hospital where i worked at the time took in patients who were evacuated from our sister hospital in louisiana. from these patients and their families, as well as in local news reports, we heard all sorts of awful stories about hospital wide power failure, then generator failure, and then death for those patients dependent on machines. i heard a lot about MD's having to make tough choices about who could use the remaining resources and who was most likely going to die anyway. there were wings of hospitals quarantined to house the dead and dying with no electricity, no air conditioning, 90 degrees and wet....it was a war zone. and only a scant few of the staff stayed behind to help and didn't evacuate with their families like they were told to do by the state.

things couldn't have been any more bleak and the situation couldn't have been farther from the norm under which these practitioners usually and comfortably practiced (presumably) ethical medicine.

i know i always tend to side with doctors, and i don't know the exact details of these cases. AND the families heart break is compelling. but STILL, if it was as i imagine, put yourself in their shoes... your hospital is drowning, your few staff members have been awake and working for days on end, many of your patients are dying, and you have a choice to either let these few patients who can't get out in time die slow, suffocating, miserable deaths, or you administer meds that will take them quickly.

if that was the situation, wasn't it humane and in fact 'doing less harm' to facilitate death?

you tell me. what would you do?

and then, here's a more happy story about a midwife delivering bebes during the storm.