The Louisiana Attorney General's office is investigating alleged "mercy killings" at New Orleans' Memorial Medical Center during and after
Katrina. The hospital was disabled soon after the flooding began and lost all power. Conditions were reported to be hellish and things only got
worse as time went by. A spokesman for the Dallas-based Tenet system stated that the staff did all they could to save patients given the extreme
circumstances.
www.realcities.com
Louisiana's attorney general is probing allegations that patients at the city's Memorial Hospital were put out of their misery by mercy killings in
the desperate days after Hurricane Katrina.
"There have been reports that doctors have been going around injecting people," Frank Minyard, Orleans Parish coroner, said Thursday.
Minyard said that as part of the investigation, his office has autopsied at least 45 bodies taken from the hospital.
It's part of a broader inquiry into the practices of 13 nursing homes and six hospitals where patients died during and after Katrina - some because
of mistreatment or neglect, family members have alleged.
New Orleans internist Dr. John Kokemor was treating patients in Memorial when floodwaters rose around the hospital the day after the hurricane, the
power cut out and the temperature inside soared above 100 degrees.
[...]
The investigation at Memorial, first reported by CNN, stemmed from complaints from relatives and others who had heard rumors of mercy killings,
authorities said.
Among the dead taken from Memorial were 11 bodies that had been in the morgue before the storm, three people who died in the storm and were brought to
the hospital, one body sent by another hospital for safekeeping and 24 bodies of frail patients in a Lifecare unit operated independently from the
hospital, according to a hospital official.
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This is not an easy story to peg. Most of us would prefer not to be made to suffer needlessly under the conditions following Katrina, but the law
expressly prohibits euthanasia in Louisiana. Some sources say that mercy killing was discussed, while another claims that a doctor has confessed to
the fact that some patients were euthanized. Charles Foti, the Louisiana Attorney General has made a career advocating for the elderly and he is not
likely to abandon these allegations anytime soon. The owners of St. Rita's Nursing home know well Foti's commitment.
Related News Links:
www.cnn.com
www.newsmax.com
washingtontimes.com
Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
45 Abandoned Patients Found Dead at New Orleans Hospital
NEWS: Katrina - Official Death Toll
[edit on 2005/10/14 by GradyPhilpott]
