Did Memorial Medical Center doctors euthanize patients?
Tags: medicalIn "Staff at New Orleans hospital debated euthanizing patients", CNN says an investigation has been launched.
The month-old post "Storm victims euthanized" has an orderly saying that this definitely happened, and that report includes a couple names. However, neither name makes it to the CNN report for some reason.
From the earlier report:
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.
From CNN:
The Louisiana attorney general's office is investigating allegations that mercy killings occurred and has requested that autopsies be performed on all 45 bodies taken from the hospital after the storm.
Orleans Parish coroner Frank Minyard said investigators have told him they think euthanasia may have been committed…
Dr. Bryant King, who was working at Memorial when conditions were at their worst, told CNN that while he did not witness any acts of euthanasia, "most people know something happened that shouldn't have happened."
…"It was battle conditions," said Fran Butler, a nurse manager. "It was as bad as being out in the field."
…Butler also told CNN that a doctor approached her at one point and discussed the subject of putting patients to sleep, and "made the comment to me on how she was totally against it and wouldn't do it."
Butler said she did not see anyone perform a mercy killing, and she said because of her personal beliefs, she would never have participated…
…But King said he is convinced the discussion of euthanasia was more than talk. He said another doctor came to him at 9 a.m. Thursday and recounted a conversation with a hospital administrator and a third doctor who suggested patients be put out of their misery.
King said that the second physician — who opposed mercy killing — told him that "this other [third] doctor said she'd be willing to do it."
About three hours later, King said, the second-floor triage area where he was working was cleared of everyone except patients, a second hospital administrator and two doctors, including the physician who had first raised the question of mercy killing.
King said the administrator asked those who remained if they wanted to join in prayer — something he said had not occurred at the hospital since Katrina ripped through the city.
One of the physicians then produced a handful of syringes, King said.
"I don't know what's in the syringes. … The only thing I heard the physician say was, 'I'm going to give you something to make you feel better,' " King said…
