The article describes the events that happened at Memorial Medical Center during and immediately following Hurricane Katrine in Uptown New Orleans. Once the power was knocked out and running water, the hospital tempter rose to about 100 degrees and resources became limited. As resources became limited Anna Pou was force to result to triage which she was not trained for, therefore her method of triage was questioned. Another doctor, Cook, who was the administrator of Memorial ; his methods of patient care were also questioned. In order to evacuate the hospital in the time frame given to him by the state police, Cook gave Pou instructions on how kill four ICU patients who were obese. Pou defends her actions by stating she was only making the patients comfortable, in a sense that if they allowed the patients to live through the next day it would be as if the patients were living in hell. In July 2006 the doctor and the nurses in connection with the death of the patients were arrested but the charges were later dropped. …show more content…
Pou who was not trained in triage had to find a way to save as many lives as she could. Pou allowing the most healthy patients to evacuate first would allow for most of her resources to be used on the patients who needed them the most. I can agree with this choice because during the hurricane transporting patients was a difficult task. Terminally ill patients most likely would have not survived transportation in the immediate days following Hurricane Katrina. Therefore, keeping them in the hospital was safer than exposing them to the damage the hurricane cause, which would risk infection that could also lead to their
On October 30th, 2015 at 2116 hours, Florida Hospital Security Operation Command (SOC) radioed FHEO Security for a Disorderly Patient ED (51D). Officers Omar Alonso-420, Steven Evans-407 and Carlos Ayuso-415 responded to the call. Upon arrival, Security staff observed Nurse Traci Davila and Dr. William Kotler in Room ED #39 talking and advising patient, Christopher Sheets (MRN: 3028388/Fin: 84773293) about the risk he takes without seeking medical attention. The patient, Mr. Kolter wasn't combative, was just anxious and wanting to leave because he didn't know what happened and also because he didn't have insurance.
With unnecessary care, they did not provided safety because not all patients were in a safe care. They did not provide effective or efficient care for the fact that they were not organized in how to evacuate all patients, how to handle a dangerous situation like this and nor did they have an effective procedure for everyone in the hospital. Doctors performed an illegal procedure in which caused Life-care patient to die due to fear. Although they tried to evacuate everyone in a timely matter they failed to complete it. That choice that Dr. Pou and her team made was a misunderstanding for many yet failed to achieve patient centered because patients were not consent to the fact that they were getting put to die.
The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), a Level I Trauma Center on Galveston Island, received substantial damage, and except for a few clinics, has been closed since the storm. Before the hurricane, UTMB was the third largest hospital in the Houston-Galveston region and the only hospital in Galveston, serving a nine-county region in Southeast Texas, including the Greater Houston area and a range of patients requiring specialized services from across the state. UTMB’s entire health care complex spans 85 acres and includes seven hospitals, as well as an assortment of specialized clinics, centers, institutes and a medical school.
Principle theme Five days at Memorial by Sheri Fink tells the story of the days after Hurricane Katrina at one hospital in New Orleans. Memorial hospital owned by Texas based Tenet corporation had 312 short term acute care (STAC) beds, and leased the seventh floor to Lifecare for a long term acute care (LTAC) hospital. Lifecare’s LTAC at Memorial cared for medically fragile patients with long term complex medical needs. The hospital and health care providers received intense scrutiny after the hurricane due to the higher numbers of dead patients in comparison to comparable New Orleans hospitals, out of the 34 patients which died at the facility, 24 were Lifecare patients.
On June 17, 1966, a shooting occurred at the Lafayette Bar and Grill in Paterson, New Jersey. It was discovered that two men were responsible for the shooting causing a bartender and a customer killed, and two other customers critically injured. The two men who were responsible for this crime did not commit any robbery, rather they fired bullets. Upon arrival at the crime scene, police discovered bullet holes and saw the four victims. Rubin Carter and his new friend John Artis were both wrongfully convicted of murder because the motor vehicle they were driving was described to be similar to the murderers’ and they assumed it was theirs.
The Story of the Murderous Doctor “More than 700,000 people die in hospitals each year in the U.S.” (Shmerling). Although it is doctors’ job to save lives, deaths still occur. When in a hospital, the patient’s life lies in the doctor’s hands. Most doctors do everything in their power to make sure that their patients stay alive, of course, there are exceptions for everything. In this case, the patient’s life who ends up in the hands of Michael Swango might not be so lucky.
Introduction The novel Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink is a gripping recollection of experiences from the effects of the natural disaster, Hurricane Katrina. Ethical dilemmas were presented when dying patients and poor conditions met. Because of Katrina, the floodwaters caused power outages that eliminated the ability to use essential equipment to care for critically ill patients (p. 64). Patients on life support required nurses to manually ambu-bagging them in order to maintain ventilation (p. 125).
For as long as I worked here I never had a good feeling about the doctor as he would smile at me creepily then inevitably brush my shoulder each time we passed. But, to be a physiatrist in an insane asylum you would almost have to be insane, yourself. As a nurse this is what I thought to myself on the days I had seen Richard and Philippe next to each other. Three months after the men had become acquaintances, Richard along with Philippe went missing one night in the beginning of April, murders across the northeast in Connecticut, New York, including Massachusetts had begun, the next month over one hundred killings had been reported all butchered and dissected.
Paul Farmer’s novel, Haiti After the Earthquake, is an amazing narrative from someone closely connected to the events which unfolded on January 12th, 2010. It serves as a powerful depiction of how a nation in need redefined resilience, recovery and sustainability, especially within the context of international aid. Dr. Paul Farmer has been involved with work in Haiti for the past 30 years. In the late 1980’s, Dr. Farmer and his colleagues founded Partners in Health, an organization dedicated to providing basic medical care and services to the people of Haiti, most notably the more vulnerable populations. Their goal is to bring modern medical care and better social services to the more neglected communities in Haiti, and included
The locals were verging people into lower areas of the state to be safe. There were a mandatory evaluation plan by Bush. The police was helping people out of their house. The state was evaluating from the state. They said “Katrina took out all cell phones and cut the road networks.”
The 2000’s was a very intense decade, with the occurrence of 9/11 which led to the War in Iraq. A year after 2000, HBO released a documentary named “Bellevue, inside Out” by Maryann DeLeo. In this documentary, the viewer gets to take a look inside Bellevue Hospital located in New York City, which contains a psychiatric institution. The film captures about 12 months inside the psychiatric unit in this hospital. The documentary follows both the employees, such as the emergency room directors, psychiatrists, nurses, etc., as well as the patients admitted into the psychiatric emergency room.
" In that type of situation the staff wanted to eliminate more of the problem. If only the disaster plan had been calculated correctly, less lives would have been lost or should I say taken. I appreciate this story. As hard as it is to read and digest, I know malpractice knows no bounds.
Some of the residents of the assisted living facility required special equipment such as wheelchairs, oxygen and special medication in order to be evacuated safely, and due to the severity of the high winds and flooding, the residents or staff members couldn’t drive out of the area. Emergency managers should conduct an assessment of their community in order to identify the individuals with special needs
However, this should be a learning experience that hospitals have to be more prepared for situations like this to happen. A number of factors like how the Memorial Medical Center was built was a huge problem, the power sources were vulnerable to the hurricane and were damaged. The wall 's structure of the hospitals was too weak and were able to get destroyed before help arrived. The faculty of the hospital were also in need of preparation on how to deal with the situation. We have to keep this in mind and remember that health care professionals will always have the best interest for us for our health and
The novel Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink gives an inside view of what happened at Memorial Hospital during Hurricane Katrina (2005); a disaster inside of a disaster. The lack of preparedness or ethical decision making is quite disappointing, considering Memorial hospital is located in New Orleans, Louisiana. New Orleans is well below sea level, and experiences frequent hurricanes and flooding. Memorial hospital itself had little to no plan for evacuating patients once the storm hit. Without power, many of the patients, especially those who were ventilator dependent, became at risk of death.