Triage and Euthanasia in Katrina Aftermath

      This past tuesday, a horryfing report published in the New York Times was published regarding an event that happened four years ago this week during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans was left in a very difficult situation; the power went out, the surrounding area was flooded, the elevators did not work, and there were not enough medical materials to treat the 136 patients that needed to be evacuated from the hospital. At a loss for what to do, Memorial resorted to triage; the act of organizing patients into groups in as a way of to deciding the order of treatment and evacuation. The patients were organized into three groups, with the most able bodied patients leaving first, and the D.C.R (do not resuscitate) patients slated to evacuate last. However, the hospital was not able to evacuate everyone because of a police protection deadline. Out of the 41 people who passed away during the process, over half of them were given drugs designed to speed up death. Some of the patients believed to be euthanized were not near death. Nine of these deaths were brought to trial, and four were ruled homicides. This leaves me with two major questions: 1) what is the most ethical way to preform triage, and 2) in that situation, was the use of euthanasia ethical?

     Any situation where triage is necessary is clearly difficult, and there is no universally decided on plan for American Hospitals. To Memorial's credit, they were able to get critical and pregnant patients out before the power outage, but after that, they put the most able bodied people higher up on the list. I think that was the wrong decision. If you have fewer resources, everyone needs food and water, but the more able bodied people will need fewer medical resources than bed-stricken patients. The few medical resources you have could then be used for a longer time. Also, the patients in worse condition are then more likely to get to better medical care when placed elsewhere, increasing their chance of survival. The able bodied patients are probably more likely to survive the wait for evacuation than the bed-stricken patients. I do not agree with Memorial's decided order. However, to their credit, since not everyone was evacuated, by putting the healthier patients first, they saved the lives of people that they believed would live longer over the people who they thought had less time to live. 

    In this situation, was the use of euthanasia ethical? It is a sticky situation; one of the healthy patients who was euthanized, Emmett Everett, was 380 pounds and in a wheelchair. The reasoning provided was that the nurses were needed elsewhere and could not carry him down five flights of stairs. However, reports say that he was perfectly healthy and did not complain. In my opinion, the doctors murdered this man. Was it for the best? I would not have made the decision to give him the drugs, but if they couldn't get him out before the building was abandoned, he still would have been left to die. I think that it was wrong to euthanize the patients, but I'm not sure which decision would have ultimately been kinder to them. 

   One more question for you to consider; Dr. Anna Pou, the doctor who authorized the lethal dosages, was not indicted by a jury for her actions but faces wrongful death suits. Do you think she should have been punished for giving the lethal dosages? 

Photo Caption: the evacuation hallway at Memorial Medical Center