Doctors scared to help after Katrina murder prosecution

Dr Anna Pou (left), with nurses Cheri Landry and Lori Budo. Picture / Reuters

NEW ORLEANS - Doctors and nurses may not stay behind during another New Orleans hurricane for fear of prosecution, medical professionals say.

State prosecutors are accusing three medical workers of murder during Katrina.

Dr Anna Pou and nurses Lori Budo and Cheri Landry laboured for days to treat patients, after politicians and many police had fled the city.

Pou, Budo and Landry are accused of administering a "lethal cocktail" of drugs to four patients at Memorial Medical Centre, one of the best hospitals in the city, which became a flooded realm of misery after the storm.

The four alleged victims were judged incapable of being moved and killed as the hospital was being abandoned, state Attorney General Charles Foti said after arresting the three last week.

If the case goes to trial, residents said they doubted a local jury who witnessed Katrina's devastation would convict. Many regard the three as heroes.

New Orleans District Attorney Eddie Jordan plans to take the case to a grand jury, a spokeswoman has said.

When hurricanes approach New Orleans and other cities, many of the most seasoned physicians and emergency personnel volunteer to stay behind to help, even as others evacuate.

For medical professionals, the accusations represent a new danger of hurricane duty some are unwilling to face.

"I think it is going to change a lot of people's attitudes toward volunteering. It makes me hesitant," said Sheri Narcisse, 31, a nurse who has stayed through two hurricanes.

Murder charges could bring sentences of life in prison, but dangers also include difficulty with careers and civil suits.

"The amount of volunteers is going to be drastically reduced if there is another hurricane because they are not going to take the chance," medical equipment salesman Ray Landry said, citing discussions with doctors.

Louisiana State University, where Pou is an associate professor and which has a major medical complex, has fielded many similar complaints, spokesman Charles Zewe said.

"We hadn't expected the doctors and nurses to say, 'Next time around, we may not be there'," he said.

Many medical ethicists say no doctor should kill a patient, especially if the decision was made without the patient's consent, and at least one of the four alleged victims may have been conscious and not told what was happening, according to an affidavit quoted by the state.

"When you volunteer and say, 'yep, I'll stay to the end,' you have to stay to the end. And it may be an ugly end," said Aine Donovan, executive director of the Ethics Institute at Dartmouth College. "Expediency doesn't trump principle."

But many New Orleanians, trained in medicine or not, believed the choice was not so clear-cut. Some doctors said the medicines given the patient were intended to alleviate pain, not to end their lives.

Ben deBoisblanc, was head of intensive care at Charity Hospital until damage from Hurricane Katrina forced its closure, said the drugs were not the "lethal cocktail" the attorney general described.

"We use these drugs in combination all the time," said deBoisblanc, who also worked through Hurricane Katrina, which killed 1336 people.

"The difference between murder and compassionate care is intent. If my intention is to alleviate your pain and suffering, even if death is a foreseeable and immediate consequence of that act, still that constitutes compassionate care. If my intent is to kill you, then that is murder," he said.

Warren Mitchell, 64, a former forklift driver at the city's port, said he did not believe a local jury would convict Pou and said he trusted she could not have saved the patients.

"It could have been my mother or anyone else. If she couldn't do it, she couldn't do it - couldn't do it!" he said.

- REUTERS