AP: Katrina Doctor Says She's Not A Murderer

[Hissyspit]

http://my.earthlink.net/article/nat?guid=20060921/45120e40_3ca6_1552620060921242106715

Katrina Doctor Says She's Not a Murderer
By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
September 21, 2006 4:33 PM EDT
NEW ORLEANS - A doctor accused of murdering four critically ill hospital patients with injections in the harrowing days after Hurricane Katrina is defending herself publicly for the first time, saying in a TV interview that she gave them drugs simply to ease their pain.

"I have spent my entire life taking care of patients. I have no history of doing anything other than good for my patients," Dr. Anna Pou said in an interview to be aired Sunday on CBS's "60 Minutes." "Why would I suddenly start murdering people?"

Nurses Cheri Landry and Lori Budo also proclaim their innocence in the interview. They and Pou were arrested on suspicion of murder in July.

- snip -

The three have not been formally charged, pending the outcome of a grand jury investigation.

The Louisiana attorney general's office said Pou and the nurses injected a lethal cocktail of drugs into the four bedridden patients after determining they were too ill to be moved from Memorial Medical Center. The 317-bed hospital was flooded in 10 feet of water, the electricity had failed and temperatures had climbed to over 100 degrees.

At least 34 people died at the hospital - many succumbing to dehydration as they waited four days for help to arrive.

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[bullimiami]

1. was she on vacation, fund raising and pretending to play the guitar

while those she is responsible for were dying by the hundreds?

I didnt think so.

[babylonsister]

2. What the hell were the options? I think she was acting compassionately;

God knows the government didn't.

[Ian David]

3. I don't think those patients are really even dead...

I watched a videotape, and it looks like they're smiling and greeting visitors.

[NOLADEM]

4. A real president would pardon these women

For what they did was horribly hard, and at the time, seemed the only thing to do. They had been hand ventilating some patients for five days in the dark, unairconditioned hospital rooms waiting for help that never came.

This woman was left to fend for these patients, and had to make decisions that no physician should have to make. It is not her fault she was forced to make them, and she should not be condemned by political, opportunitic Monday morning quarterbacking by the very folks who failed to support her in the first place.