In the four years since Katrina, Pou has helped write and pass three laws in Louisiana that offer immunity to health care professionals from most civil lawsuits - though not in cases of willful misconduct - for their work in future disasters, from hurricanes to terrorist attacks to pandemic influenza. After a New Orleans grand jury declined to indict her on second-degree murder charges, the case faded from view. The physician, Anna Pou, defended herself on national television, saying her role was to “help” patients “through their pain,” a position she maintains today.
Investigators pored over the evidence, and in July 2006, nearly a year after Katrina, Louisiana Department of Justice agents arrested the doctor and the nurses in connection with the deaths of four patients. Mortuary workers eventually carried 45 corpses from Memorial, more than from any comparable-size hospital in the drowned city. Still, investigators were surprised at the number of bodies in the makeshift morgue and were stunned when health care workers charged that a well-regarded doctor and two respected nurses had hastened the deaths of some patients by injecting them with lethal doses of drugs. The hurricane knocked out power and running water and sent the temperatures inside above 100 degrees. Within days, the grisly tableau became the focus of an investigation into what happened when the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina marooned Memorial Medical Center in Uptown New Orleans. A pallid hand reached across a blue gown. Inside, more than a dozen bodies lay motionless on low cots and on the ground, shrouded in white sheets.
Deadly nightmare word cracked#
The smell of death was overpowering the moment a relief worker cracked open one of the hospital chapel’s wooden doors.
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