We had to kill our patients /when NO hospitals evac'ed

[flyarm]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=361980&in_page_id=1770

11/09/05 - News section

We had to kill our patients


by CAROLINE GRAHAM and JO KNOWSLEY, Mail on Sunday



snip:
Doctors working in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans killed critically ill patients rather than leaving them to die in agony as they evacuated hospitals, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

With gangs of rapists and looters rampaging through wards in the flooded city, senior doctors took the harrowing decision to give massive overdoses of morphine to those they believed could not make it out alive.

In an extraordinary interview with The Mail on Sunday, 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.

Her heart-rending account has been corroborated by a hospital orderly and by local government officials. One emergency official, William 'Forest' McQueen, said: "Those who had no chance of making it were given a lot of morphine and lain down in a dark place to die."

Euthanasia is illegal in Louisiana, and The Mail on Sunday is protecting the identities of the medical staff concerned to prevent them being made scapegoats for the events of last week.

Their families believe their confessions are an indictment of the appalling failure of American authorities to help those in desperate need after Hurricane Katrina flooded the city, claiming thousands of lives and making 500,000 homeless.

'These people were going to die anyway'

[onecent]

1. My blessing go with her. You have to do what you have to do!

[crispini]

2. .

:kick: :cry:

[greatauntoftriplets]

3. What a horrible decision to have to make.

I hope the authorities never learn who the physicians were. The guilt they will live with for the rest of their lives is heart-breaking. They did the right thing.

[I Have A Dream]

4. My heart hurts for these physicians. This did not have to happen.

:cry:

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. Oh, to have to do it that way. I am for euthanasia, but with one's

family and friends holding you as you leave this world under controlled circumstances.

Those poor people, patients and caregivers alike. My heart and prayers go out to all of them.

------------------------------------------------------
URGENT yet easy! Hold the government accountable for Katrina's aftermath
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4736062

[elehhhhna]

32. I'm with you--and frankly, nurses do this for end-stage patients

ALL THE TIME. It's an open secret in hospice care.

[Ladyhawk]

44. Thank goodness. I hope such a hospice nurse is there for me.

My family would never let me go gracefully.

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. Why didn't HS/FEMA evacuate the hospitals before the storm?

This is the one area that State and Local officials would be overwhelmed and require Federal Assistance. Only HS/FEMA would have the resources and the ability to commandeer the resources required for this task. Why did they not even bother to try?

[lyonn]

17. Fema being responsible for plenty of generators,

medical supplies, food and water would have been a no brainer as soon as this was declared a disaster area a couple of days prior to the hurricane hitting land. Yet Nothing was done by fema, homeland security or feds anywhere unless you call the coast guard feds.

A city of approx. a half million people can not possibly take care of all the emergency needs in 2 days time tring to get all the people evacuated, food and water in critical areas plus generator for critical needs like hospitals, etc. Sheesh!

[DoYouEverWonder]

19. This is an issue that needs to be raised

what was the plan for the hospitals and why didn't FEMA and the Red Cross provide assistance before and after the store? Don't tell me know at the top could imagine that this would be a problem?

[progressivebydesign]

40. Because they are incompetent with an incompetent leader in Bush.

Once they rolled FEMA into Homeland Security, you knew it had to be bad.

[MissWaverly]

7. Oh God have mercy on all of us.

What a terrible thing, and I posted on another thread that the U.S.
has given close to 100 million in the last 2 years just to resettle Israelis. That is wrong, this whole thing could have been prevented
for half of that, oh the humanity. I am not saying that we should not
have foreign aid but not at the expense of the lives of U.S. citizens.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Hmm standard medical practice in a military hospital

and it is amazing these docs were faced with this choice... for they should not have to make it

[wurzel]

9. Ask Frisk and Delay what they would have done.

And how come this is known in UK but not here?

[nashville_brook]

10. omg.

i hope these stories are getting out.

[BamaBecky]

39. ditto...small letters...uttered softly....omg...n/t

[Bluebear]

11. Compassionate GOP will call for death penalty for these doctors

First degree murder, in cold blood.

[donheld]

12. They made the right decision IMHO

It would have been very sad no matter how it ended.

[5X]

13. This source needs to be looked into. A poster earlier..

had a link to winkipedia that brought into question
the veracity of this paper.

[redacted]

18. You're questioning the credibility of the Mail on Sunday?

Are you sure the post you reference wasn't talking about a British tabloid instead?

[salvorhardin]

56. The Mail IS a tabloid n/t

[Old Mouse]

34. I agreee. N/T

[longship]

14. The Battaan stood off-shore with facilities

The precise facilities required in this case. Nobody moved a muscle to enable LA to use those facilities, i.e., Bush, Chertoff, Brown.

[patdem]

15. At this point I am glad there will be no autopsies...some drowned from

neglect...some were given drugs in order to let them die with dignity...I would not want to know who suffered a horrible death and who died peacefully if I was a member of one of the families...It is just too horrible to fanthom. All of it!

[flyarm]

16. i didn't want to post my own comment..but i have to....

no this did not have to happen..and no one should have to make this decision under the worst conditions...

and i hold * 100% responsible..he sure could run his sorry conservative ass back to DC to involve himself in brain dead womans families decision!

but help living people in a hospital...fuck no..he didn't give a rats crap..this must be sent to every rethug you know...every single one of them..and ask is this their human values?? is this compassionate conservatism??

please get it out to every rethug you know!!

and shove it up their asses!

i am furious...no care taker should have to make this decision..what have we become as a people and a nation??

this is how conservatives treat our nation..leave them to die ...leave caretakers with no choices...leave doctors and nurses with no choices...

i am a disgusted human being today ..and for the past 2 weeks...i feel sick...

and remember on OPRAH the doctor who said at the airport people dying were "PUT INTO THE MORGUE " to die...

and think of the people who were found in the nursing home...left there..to drown and die...

is this what people work their whole lives for ?? is this how we take care of the sick ?? is this what we do to those who can't take care of themselves??

is this what people who did the right thing their entire lives for??

and * was playing golf in san diego??

and * was playing birthday cake and playing guitar??

ohhhhhhhh god i thought my heart could not ache more..i was wrong....

on 9/11 this day where i heard my co-workers names read off at ground zero, and i heard neighbors names from my hometown read off...

and i wonder do we have the resolve to hold those who run this government who failed "we the people" responsible , and accountable??

i just wonder how much further we have sunk as a nation...

with a bleeding heart today...

fly

[roguevalley]

20. God will bless them. They did what they had to do. They were true

to their oaths and their ethics to the end. They couldn't leave anyone behind.

[flyarm]

21. kick

:kick:

[melody]

22. George thought Terri Schiavo was important, but not these poor people...

Goddamn him to hell and then some.

What a horrible, horrible thing to have to do.

[Stinky The Clown]

23. Can ANYONE imagine the anguish this poor doctor is now feeling?

That's all I can do. Imagine it.

Can you imagine the anquish, George? Can you?

[knitter4democracy]

24. I can, but only a bit.

My husband's an internist, and when he was in med school, he was asked to attend a patient who had asked to die. The resident made him stand there and monitor everything with him and hold her hand, as she had no family. He still can't talk much about it. He wasn't sure why the patient made that choice, hadn't talked to her himself, and feels horrible that it happened that way.

He's never done it himself since, but he knows it's done quietly. He has lost patients under his hands in codes and been there when family members or nurses have turned off the machines, and it's changed him.

I cannot imagine how those doctors will cope with this. I hope they get the help they need before going on to the next patient, acting like everything's okay. It's hard to ask for help in that profession, though. My heart just breaks for them.

[NorthernSpy]

25. I'm starting to think the Daily Mail may not be the most reliable source..

It's not your fault, Flayarm. I thank you for bringing the article to everybody's attention.

But when I read stories like that, little alarm bells go off. We'll see what comes of these claims of doctors and nurses deliberately killing their patients in New Orleans.

[melody]

26. If it is true, then Bush should be brought up on charges pronto

I could see the DM making up a story like this, though. Their journalistic scruples are less than legendary.

[etherealtruth]

33. The "alarm bells" have been ringing loudly for me as well ...

There are horrific stories of the acutely ill, dying while waiting on rooftops to be evacuated from Charity Hospital (CNN, Sanjay Gupta reports). There are stories of doctors and nurses "bagging" patients when there was no power for the ventilators ...

The health care professionals were exhausted, did not have proper nutrition or fluids and were working in 3rd world conditions, I have trouble understanding how they had time to euthanize patients as described ... all the doctors and nurses interviewed by news outlets told the same stories of trying to preserve life in horrific conditions.

[NorthernSpy]

27. update: Daily Mail scammed! Is their "emergency official" source...

... "William "Forest" McQeen" actually a groundskeeper?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4220656.stm

Mother-of-two Suzanne McQueen, of Maidstone, Kent, is waiting for news of her American husband (William) Forest McQueen.

He has been working in his home country since 1997, and lives and works with his brother in the Abita Springs area, north of Lake Pontchartrain, which is north of New Orleans.

The couple married in the UK in 1991, and Suzanne said she and her daughters - aged 11 and 13 - were planning to move to the US to join her husband as soon as was possible.

Mr McQueen's wife has had no news from his friends and family
Part of his job there is to maintain the grounds of an old plantation house, she said.

"I phoned the morning the hurricane hit, and his brother said Forest hadn't been home for the last 24 hours because he'd been on shift clearing up trees and lines from all the wind damage that came before the hurricane. I haven't heard anything since.

Whereas the article in Daily Mail claims that:

In an extraordinary interview with The Mail on Sunday, 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.

Her heart-rending account has been corroborated by a hospital orderly and by local government officials. One emergency official, William 'Forest' McQueen, said: "Those who had no chance of making it were given a lot of morphine and lain down in a dark place to die."

Be sure to visit the BBC link. There's a really charming picture of this William "Forest" McQueen, who looks every bit the self-important :+ he evidently is.

I'm starting to think that the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe has not been the news media's finest hour...


:dunce:

[flyarm]

35. wow!! thank you ..i had never heard of this newspaper ..or vaguely

had i remembered it..but someone sent it to me , in fact i had it sent to me by several people...

if this is false..then yes it ..this paper must do a retraction immediately...i hate this...it makes one very reticent to post anything!!
thanks for the clarification!!
fly

[flyarm]

46. better check it out..now on sept 12th the daily telegraph has picked

the story up as well!!

now the story has also been published by the daily telegraph...

http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,20281,1656685 ...

seems some would like to discount this story..but now a second paper has picked it up for Sept 12th...

Patients put down
September 12, 2005

snip:

DOCTORS working in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans killed critically ill patients rather than leave them to die in agony as they evacuated.

With gangs of rapists and looters rampaging through wards in the flooded city, senior doctors took the harrowing decision to give massive overdoses of morphine to those they believed could not make it out alive.

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.

Her heart-rending account has been corroborated by a hospital orderly and by local government officials.

One emergency official, William Forest McQueen, said: "Those who had no chance of making it were given a lot of morphine and lain down in a dark place to die."

[kiki]

28. There's that "culture of life" in action again.

How much fucking blood can you fit on those hands, George?

[NorthernSpy]

29. the story is bull!

Their named source, William "Forest" McQueen, is actually a groundskeeper! He's spent the past week clearing debris, not overseeing euthanasia.

Thank gawd we live in a world in which no one ever tells lies to make himself important...

[kiki]

30. No, I never do that.

It would jeopardise my cover as a secret agent... :)

[NorthernSpy]

31. I've notified the Daily Mail...

... and if they don't print a retraction, then how can they continue to call themselves a newspaper, as opposed to a journal of fiction?

[Inland]

38. How do you know that?

Do you have a cite?

[LisaL]

48. I also think it's fishy. Even if some Dr. did do it, if they admitted

to it, they could lose everything and go to prison, so why would they blabber to some newspaper?

[libodem]

36. heartfelt condolences

what though decisions

[all.of.me]

37. this is surreal

i feel like i'm reading a novel. it all seems like fiction. it is awful.....

[jim3775]

41. And yet when someone shoots a dog the general reaction is

"THIS HAS TO STOP!!!!!!!! SICK BASTARDS!!!!!!!!!! BLAST IT TO THE MEDIA!!!!"


Im not making any judgments or supporting either action (that needs to be taken on a case by case basis and I don't have enough info on either to make a judgment, nor would I even want to be in a situation to make such a judgment for myself) I am just noting the contrast in attitudes and tone.

[annabanana]

42. dear God how heartbreaking....

Please preserve me from ever having to face this eventuality.

[Nothing Without Hope]

43. Another thread on this heartbreaking story:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1772316
Thread title: Patients put down (Euthanasia in New Orleans)

Let's hope the heartless GOP frauds don't hound these caregivers.

[flyarm]

45. weird many were saying this story was bogus earlier when i posted this..

now the story has also been published by the daily telegraph...

http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,20281,1656685...

seems some would like to discount this story..but now a second paper has picked it up for Sept 12th...

Patients put down
September 12, 2005

snip:
DOCTORS working in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans killed critically ill patients rather than leave them to die in agony as they evacuated.

With gangs of rapists and looters rampaging through wards in the flooded city, senior doctors took the harrowing decision to give massive overdoses of morphine to those they believed could not make it out alive.

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.

Her heart-rending account has been corroborated by a hospital orderly and by local government officials.

One emergency official, William Forest McQueen, said: "Those who had no chance of making it were given a lot of morphine and lain down in a dark place to die."



gee i was feeling like i shouldn't have posted this early today..but it seems another paper is picking up this story...

kick this!!



:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick:

fly

[flyarm]

47. kick

:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: :kick:

[Nothing Without Hope]

49. Did they have a reason for thinking it is bogus? I have seen no US

documentation yet, but there's no obvious reason I can see for assuming it's bogus. Maybe we should put this in the category of "reported, possibly true, not absolutely certain." For obvious reasons, the caregivers would not give their contact info.

[cynatnite]

50. I doubt the veracity of this story

Were there really gangs of rapists and looters roaming the city? I've heard this claim many times but have yet to see anything.

We all know the atrocities that went on at the Superdome and the Convention Center. There's evidence to back it up.

The other thing is the lack of details and very vague descriptions. I'm not looking for names to be named, but so much of this does not ring true to me.

I just have a hard time swallowing this story.

[geomon666]

51. There were rumors of this happening.

And yeah...the story is hard to swallow. Having to kill off your patients as a mercy isn't supposed to go down easy.

[cynatnite]

52. I never believe rumors.

That's why they are rumors. The story is too vague to put any stock into it.

I'm not an advocate of euthanasia anyway and that could have something to do with it. It could also be that I spent years in the medical field which leads to my doubts.

Either way, I consider this story unreliable and without merit. Until more concrete facts are brought forward, it remains nothing more than a rumor.

[geomon666]

57. That's your prerogative if you want to consider the article unreliable

But to say it's without merit is simply unreasonable. A story of this magnitude absolutely has merit and should be told.

[flyarm]

54. i would have had a hard time swallowing if i had not seen the OPrah show

on Oprahs show this week she had a top notch surgeon go to the airport to report and he ended up doing some work while there to report for Oprahs story..well this surgeon went into the morgue section set up at the airport...he went in and when he came out with cameras rolling it was obvious he was extremely shook up...he said ..( not his words..but what i remember you can get trascript i am sure)
but he said dying patients were put in the morgue to die as they could not take care of them all...he said he has experienced alot of death in his career , but he had never seen anything even close to this bad, that people were put in the morgue with no family or loved ones, or anyone ..and they were left to die in the morgue!

then there is the story of the nursing home where 14 patients were found who had been abandoned by nursing care and they all died ...

so is this so far fetched..who knows..we will find out soon i am sure...or will we with our media?? and this white houses spin??

this is now in 2 British papers...

now after 5 years of the * media spin..i believe the british media a heck more than us media!

fly

[cynatnite]

58. Those stories are not this one

This one supposedly took place in a hospital at the height of the panic of NO.

It's not the Oprah story since that took place in a morgue and it was't a nursing home(we still don't know what happened there).

The British haven't always been perfect in their news and just because a story that takes place here is reported over there doesn't make it any more or less credible than any place else.

I am not a person who believes everything she reads and I never will be. This is a vague story with just enough to make it halfway believable, but lacking in crucial facts.

IF more local officials come forward or (better yet) family members come forward, then I will shrug off my cynicism.

[Mr_Spock]

53. OMG - this is the live bodies in morgue story from Oprah!!!

I was wondering if there was any corroboration of that story - now it makes sense; horrible, disgusting sense :(

[Arbiter]

55. This is just awful.

:(

[The Magistrate]

59. Locking

This needs a better source; there are serious questions raised about the valididty of the account.