We had to kill our patients (Mail on Sunday, 9 Sept 2005)

[Benbow]

Front page story today.

Doctors working in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans killed critically ill patients rather than leaving them to die in agony as they evacuated hospitals, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

With gangs of rapists and looters rampaging through wards in the flooded city, senior doctors took the harrowing decision to give massive overdoses of morphine to those they believed could not make it out alive.

In an extraordinary interview with The Mail on Sunday, one New Orleans doctor told how she 'prayed for God to have mercy on her soul' after she ignored every tenet of medical ethics and ended the lives of patients she had earlier fought to save.

<snip>

The doctor said: "I didn't know if I was doing the right thing. But I did not have time. I had to make snap decisions, under the most appalling circumstances, and I did what I thought was right.

"I injected morphine into those patients who were dying and in agony. If the first dose was not enough, I gave a double dose. And at night I prayed to God to have mercy on my soul."

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/

George Bush has a lot to answer for to the American people, doesn't he? If one of those patients had been his mother, brother, cousin, he'd be suing the doctors to Kingdom come.

[mourningdove92]

1. the link is not working.

[ret5hd]

4. same here.

[Benbow]

5. Thanks - fixed the link n/t

[rosesaylavee]

2. Journalism in Britain has lower standards - believe it or not - than

the US. Not sure what reputation the Mail has there but many of the papers there are the equivalent of our 'Globe' and 'National Enquirer'.

Anyone have a perspective on this paper?

[Benbow]

7. You amaze me - lower than journalism standards in the US?! n/t

[D-Notice]

9. Wikipedia

says all that needs ot be about the Mail on Sunday/Daily Mail

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Mail

As a target of satire the stereotypical Daily Mail reader is characterised as a borderline-racist, homophobic, aspiring middle-class conservative who lacks the intelligence to read the broadsheet equivalent the Daily Telegraph. In fact, in recent years the phrase 'Daily Mail reader' has become increasingly used in general parlance (not just in the media) as shorthand for any person with such attitudes.

Due to its stance on moral issues - for instance, its continuing condemnation of already-punished criminals such as Myra Hindley and Maxine Carr, and its editorial outrage at television programmes such as Jerry Springer - The Opera or Brass Eye - some left-wingers refer to the paper with nicknames such as the "Daily Wail" and the "Daily Hate". The latter is in part because - according to Polly Toynbee in The Guardian <3> - the Mail's founder, Lord Northcliffe, said his winning formula was to give his readers "a daily hate".

[Benbow]

12. That needs updating - by someone more cosmopolitan

Citing Polly Toynbee as an authority on anything is a JOKE. <Looks for smilie for "hilariously funny"> :rofl: She NEVER checks her facts; she is an opinion (any opinion, if she is being paid for it) on a stick.

People, Wikipedia is not written by Moses.

What matters is whether or not the report in the Mail on Sunday is corroborated.

[salvorhardin]

16. You're right

Wikipedia is not a traditional authoritative source, but because of its' collaborative nature it tends towards accuracy and where information is in dispute it is usually flagged as such. That being said, one should never trust an encyclopedia for foundational knowledge. It's useful as a resource of first-resort; to point you in the direction for further research.

But come on, the Daily Mail is just two steps above the National Enquirer. It's a tabloid that sometimes reports real news, but it's almost always slanted and like the Enquirer is big on selling fear and titillation and often thinly disguised bigotry. If this article is true the only reason the Mail printed it was because it fit into their forumla. Because of the Mail's reputation and because the Mail is the only source I can find online with this story then I really have to question its' accuracy.

[LeftishBrit]

24. This may be true...

But she's right about the Daily Mail, and I think I was calling it the Daily Hate before she was, though I'm not going to take out copyright on the term!

Of course, even a yellow rag like the Hate-Mail could occasionally include something accurate, so we do have to see if it's corroberated.

[lockdown]

18. Daily Mail

Hateful putrid racist full-of-shit tabloid rag read by Hyacinth Bucket types everywhere.

[Benbow]

19. That's silly - Hyacinth Bucket would have read the Daily Telegraph n/t

[Bozita]

20. imho, you should place your original post in GD -- more traffic?

good find, Benbow

[Benbow]

23. Thanks - I think someone's beaten me to it :-) n/t

[lockdown]

21. I'll take your word for it...

[Benbow]

22. Trust me - I know many "Hyacinth Buckets" personally! n/t

[PuraVidaDreamin]

3. This doctor is a hero, and lived up to her oath.

IMO-

Stay Human!

[Benbow]

10. Yes, faced with the unthinkable, she made a very brave decision n/

[salvorhardin]

6. Working link

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=361980&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source=&ct=5

[Bozita]

8. What will the Schiavo crowd say?

[sasha031]

13. The Mail is right wing rag

I don't know if I would believe physicians talking to UK press about killing patients. Is it possible they may have given morphine to chronically ill people, I say sure, it would be the only compassionate thing to do under the circumstances.
I don't think they would talk to a tabloid about it, not a smart move.
The Independent and Guardian are excellent in the UK, the rest of the papers look like our Enquirer.

[Benbow]

14. The US has an ultra right-wing government ...

"it would be the only compassionate thing to do under the circumstances."

It's (a) illegal and (b) breach of the Hippocratic oath.

"the rest of the papers look like our Enquirer."

You haven't heard of the Independent, then?

[SmokingJacket]

11. Wow. Someone was speculating about this on DU a few days ago,

and I thought they were nuts.

But the Mail isn't a totally illegitimate paper -- it has a lot of fluff but it's not the Weekly World News -- so you have to take this seriously.

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. There is one named official

Not a doctor himself:

Her heart-rending account has been corroborated by a hospital orderly and by local government officials. One emergency official, William 'Forest' McQueen, said: "Those who had no chance of making it were given a lot of morphine and lain down in a dark place to die."
...
Mr McQueen, a utility manager for the town of Abita Springs, half an hour north of New Orleans, told relatives that patients had been 'put down', saying: "They injected them, but nurses stayed with them until they died."

Mr McQueen has been working closely with emergency teams and added: "They had to make unbearable decisions."

It's quite possible it happened - and I wouldn't condemn the doctors for it.

[KyndCulture]

17. Well I think if it is true

she did the right thing. If those paitients were terminal and didn't have the strength to survive an evac, she did what she could to help them. It seems they would have died anyway. If it was an end stage cancer patient or someone in great pain, she did what was the most humane and human thing to do. Good on her.