No charges for doctor in Katrina hospital deaths

[The Straight Story]

No charges for doctor in Katrina hospital deaths

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- A grand jury Tuesday decided not to pursue criminal charges against Dr. Anna Pou, who was at the center of a probe into four patients' deaths at a New Orleans hospital in the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina, a spokesman for the Orleans Parish district attorney said.
art.pou.file.ho.gi.jpg

Dr. Anna Pou appears in an undated photo released by the Louisiana attorney general's office.

Pou and two nurses -- Cheri Landry and Lori Budo -- were arrested in July 2006 after a 10-month investigation into the deaths at New Orleans' Memorial Medical Center.

Louisiana Attorney General Charles C. Foti charged the trio with second-degree murder.

The charges against Landry and Budo were recently dropped. Video Watch what led up to grand jury's decision »

Pou, Landry and Budo denied the charges, and their attorneys have said they acted heroically, staying to treat patients rather than evacuate.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/07/24/katrina.doctor/index.html

[LostinVA]

1. Good -- they should all have been given medals, not charges

[Swamp Rat]

2. The ones who need to be charged for murder are BUSHLER, CHENEY, CHERTOFF, BROWN, & VITTER!!!

[BOSSHOG]

3. I'd let Doctor Pou and her nurses take care of me or any family

member anytime. Mr Foti executed a miscarriage of justice. So sad.

[Richard Steele]

4. Good. It's about damn time this witch hunt ended. NOW can we go after the real killers?

The ones who locked down that city and withheld food and water,
the ones who turned refugees away at gunpoint,
the ones who cut funding for emergency supplies,
the ones who took away the money to maintain the levees....

THOSE people- the ones who are actually RESPONSIBLE. When
will we be charging them?

[bullimiami]

5. how about some negligent homicide charges for bush and brownie.

[KittyWampus]

6. I felt such relief reading that today. Don't know why I identified with her. What a horrible

ordeal.

[PDJane]

7. Especially since they knew the levees were breaking.....

and didn't notify the folks on the ground.

That means that the White House and the Army Corps of Engineers knew that the levees wouldn't hold, regardless of the fact that the hurricane missed NO. That means that the whole damn lot are liable for the damages to homes, the massive death toll, and the pain and suffering. Of course, paying for that isn't in the Bush plan.

For this alone, this administration should be impeached and charged. Just for this, if nothing else.

[Solo_in_MD]

9. So did the state and local governments, who had primary responsibility

[PDJane]

10. No.

The white house and the army corps of engineers were aware that the levees were about to crack on Monday, and that's from Dr. Van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, and the chief technician advising the state on saving lives during Katrina. That bit of information is from Armed Madhouse.

"That Monday night, August 29, 2005, the sleepless crew at the state Emergency Operations Center, directing the response to Hurricane Katrina, were high-fiving it, relieved that Katrina had swung east of New Orleans, sparing the city from drowning.

They were wrong. The Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, and the White House knew for critical hours that the levees had begun to crack, but withheld the information for a day and a night. The delay was deadly.

Van Heerden explained that levees don’t collapse in a single bang. First, there’s a small crack or two, a few feet wide, which take hours to burst open into visible floodways.

Had the state know New Orleans’ bulwark was failing, it would have shifted resources to evacuate those left in the danger zone. From my interview with the professor:

Dr. van Heerden: FEMA knew at 11 o’clock on Monday that the levees had been breached. At 2 p.m. they flew over the 17th Street Canal and took video of the breach.
Question: So the White House wouldn’t tell you that the levees had been breached?
Dr. van Heerden: They didn’t tell anybody.
Question: And you’re at the Emergency Center?
Dr. van Heerden: I mean nobody knew. Well, the Corps of Engineers knew. FEMA knew. None of us knew.

The prevarications continued all week.

Van Heerden said, “I went to the Governor’s on Tuesday night and I said this, ‘There’s a lot more breeches than one.’ They said, ‘whatever you need, go find out.’ I got in an airplane, I flew. I counted twenty-eight breeches.”

The White House had good reason, or at least political and financial reasons, to keep mum. A hurricane is an act of God, but catastrophic levee failure is an act of the Administration. Once the federal levees go, evacuation, rescue and those frightening words—responsibility and compensation—become Washington’s. Van Heerden said that this was “not an act of God, but catastrophic failure of the levee system.” would mean that, at least, “these people must be compensated.”

[Rageneau]

8. All these medical folks deserve our thanks and geat respect.

They proved, again, that while our leaders are cowards and moral paupers, the American PEOPLE are still what they always were: Caring and courageous.

[Horse with no Name]

11. I am thankful everyday that I have never been put in the position these caregivers

were put in.
What I would like to see is the AG go after HCA (Frist's hospital) for dumping their patients on County when THEIR staff left for safety.
That was a crime--in fact, that is probably a factor in the decisions these brave caregivers had to make.