Project Katrina

One of the most heart-wrenching stories of Katrina, and there are so many to choose from, is that of Dr. Anna Pou. Right after Katrina hit she was accused of murdering nine patients in a long-term care unit of LifeCare Hospital in a New Orleans. I have to admit in some posts I wrote I was not that kind to her. But in hindsight I was dead wrong. She acted as an angel of mercy it was shown in court documents. Which is why a grand jury declined to indict her.

She still faces a number of civil suits that will most likely drag on for years, but as more and more information surfaces it is clear, at least to me, that she did the only thing she could do. From MSNBC:

Almost a year after the storm, in July 2006, authorities arrested Dr. Anna Pou, a well-known head and neck surgeon. She was eventually accused of murdering nine patients who were in a long-term acute care unit on the seventh floor run by LifeCare Hospital of New Orleans. (Two nurses were also arrested but their charges were later dropped.)

Pou tells NEWSWEEK’s Julie Scelfo that she did indeed administer morphine and a sedative to the nine patients and she knew that these medication might hasten their deaths. But, she says, killing them was not her intention. In the desperate calculation Pou and other medical professionals were forced to make in the chaos and madness that engulfed the hospital, she says some patients could be saved and others were almost certain to die. It was their suffering Pou says she sought to alleviate.

You can read the full interview with Dr. Pou here.