Doctor, 2 nurses held in Katrina deaths

Deaths listed as ‘Katrina-related’
After the bodies were recovered, Orleans Parish coroner Frank Minyard said they were so decomposed the deaths could only be listed as “Katrina-related.”

He later said samples had been taken from dozens of patients who died at various hospitals and nursing homes to test for potentially lethal doses of drugs such as morphine.

In a December interview, Dr. Pou had told Baton Rouge television station WBRZ: “There were some patients there who were critically ill who, regardless of the storm, had the orders of do not resuscitate. In other words, if they died, to allow them to die naturally, and to not use heroic methods to resuscitate them.”

“We all did everything in our power to give the best treatment that we could to the patients in the hospital to make them comfortable,” Pou said then.

Tammie Holley, an attorney representing about a dozen families whose relatives died at Memorial, says the presence of the sedative in addition to morphine is important in determining whether hospital staff intended to kill a patient. Midazolam is used to induce unconsciousness before surgery, according to a medical Web site.

“If it was only morphine, there would be no way to know if they were administering it to control their pain,” Holley said.

'Euthanasia ... never permissible'
Harry Anderson, a spokesman for Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare Corp., said the allegations against the doctor and nurses, if proven true, were disturbing.

“Euthanasia is repugnant to everything we believe as ethical health care providers, and it violates every precept of ethical behavior and the law. It is never permissible under any circumstances,” Anderson said.

In addition to Pou, nurses Cheri Landry and Lori Budo were arrested and later released on personal recognizance bonds, officials said.

It wasn’t immediately clear if Landry and Budo had attorneys who could comment.

Simmons said Pou was arrested and handcuffed at her house late Monday night.

“I told them that she is not a flight risk. I told them that she would surrender herself. Instead, they chose to arrest her in her scrubs so that they could present her scalp to the media,” he said.

Angela McManus said Tuesday that her 70-year-old mother was among the patients who died at Memorial. Her mother had been recovering from a blood infection but seemed fine and was still able to speak when police demanded relatives of the ill evacuate. She died later that day, McManus said.

“At least now I’ll be able to get some answers,” McManus said. “For months, I haven’t known what happened to my mom. I need some answers just to be able to function.”

Tenet said Tuesday it is selling the now-closed Memorial Medical Center and two other area hospitals to Ochsner Health System, a sale expected to be completed by Aug. 31.

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