Deadly Choices at Memorial Medical: What It Means Today

Sheri Fink talks with Bruce Shapiro of the Dart Center about the impact and importance of the events at Memorial Medical Center.

Read the story: http://www.propublica.org/feature/the-deadly-choices-at-memorial-826

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Sheri Fink
• Hurricane Katrina
• ProPublica
• Memorial Medical

[porsche518]

A Pulitzer for garbage.

[kalm77]

painless Killing vs care and healing......playing god? maybe it will become a plot for "must see tv" episode.

Makes me sick

[HaulBag]

I think one issue that needs to be recognized is that the hospital staff needed to evacuate. The situation wouldn't have been safe much longer. Should the staff have stayed there, risking their own safety, in order to care for many patients who probably wouldn't have survived? I think they had a right to save themselves, but that forced an impossible decision on them: do you just abandon people to die in awful misery? Saying "yes" to that is unconscionable. That only leaves one humane choice.

[ghune]

Pulitzer price. Good job, great article.

[kenkcard]

Dr Pou was no hero.

Attorney are attempting to seal all victims medical records.

The interviews do not talk about family member who were denied access to their love one during their last days.

My heart goes out to the Dr. and nurses that were involved.

However, the fear and long working affected judgement.

And in my book its called murder.

[wangcar1]

One lesson to be learned from this situation is that sanctimonious and self-righteous do-gooders will come in and "shoot the wounded" for their own self gratification. In a disaster as massive as Katrina, there is no perfect solution available.

It would be safer to let people die in agony and acute distress to avoid the possibility of litigation. However humane professionals would probably act to minimise suffering as probably happened.

[db812]

Dr. Pou stayed and saved lives while everyone else got the hell out. You, Madame are just a whore! Anything for a buck!

[wconover4937]

Is this the kind of investigative journalism ProPublica plans to bring us? A false indictment of doctors doing their best in the worst of circumstances, without power, water, sleep or succor? What public good will come of this article? It will only make doctors more fearful of malpractice suits and more inclined to order heroic measures for terminal patients, bolstering the same flawed incentives that are bankrupting U.S. health care. This article sickens me.

[jrjones529]

Dr. Pou was a hero.

[DrApostate]

Why didn't Sheri Fink investigate Lifecare Hospitals, the corporation that abandoned critically ill patients during a hurricane? What about the responsibility of the relatives of those patients? Aren't they responsible for abandoning those patients during a hurricane also?