News Commentary in the form of a montage
part I:  "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."
source: http://www.forbes.com/business/services/feeds/ap/2006/07/18/ap2887273.html

A doctor and two nurses who worked through the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina were arrested overnight, accused of giving four patients stranded at their hospital lethal doses of morphine and a sedative, authorities said Tuesday.

"We're not calling this euthanasia. We're not calling this mercy killings. This is second-degree murder," said Kris Wartelle, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Charles C. Foti.

The arrest warrants say Dr. Anna Pou and the two nurses intentionally killed four patients at Memorial Medical Center "by administering or causing to be administered lethal doses of morphine sulphate (morphine) and midazolam (Versed)."

In an accompanying affidavit, an agent for the Louisiana Justice Department wrote that Pou told a nurse executive three days after the hurricane hit that "lethal doses" would be administered to those patients who could not be evacuated.

Pou said the patients remaining at the hospital would likely not survive and that a "decision had been made to administer lethal doses" to them, the affidavit says.

"'Lethal doses of what?'" the nurse executive asked, according to the affidvit says. It says Pou answered: "morphine and ativan."

Two months after the hurricane, the attorney general subpoenaed more than 70 people in an investigation into rumors that medical personnel at Memorial Medical Center had euthanized patients who were in pain after the hurricane as they waited in miserable conditions for rescue.

Pou's lawyer, Rick Simmons, said his client is innocent, and her mother said she was distressed by her daughter's arrest.

"Medicine was the most important thing in her life and I know she never ever did anything deliberately to hurt anyone," Jeanette Pou said in a telephone interview.

Memorial Medical Center had been cut off by flooding after the Aug. 29 hurricane swamped New Orleans. Power was out in the 317-bed hospital and the temperatures inside rose over 100 degrees as the staff tried to tend to patients who waited four days to be evacuated.

At least 34 patients died there during that period, 10 of them patients of the hospital's owner Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare Corp. and 24 patients in a facility run by LifeCare Holdings Inc., a separate company.

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.

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.



Associated Press Writers Alan Sayre Mary Foster in New Orleans and Melinda Deslatte in Baton Rouge contributed to this report.


part 2:

"They all probably could have left their patients," she said. "The fact that they stayed by the bedside of the most vulnerable patients, and in many cases hand-bagged them [supplied oxygen with a manual ventilator] for hours and hours, these were acts of remarkable courage."


An even broader ethical question arises over why it took so long to rescue the public hospital patients, Zoloth said. "The patients in the poor, public hospital faced a far worse fate than the private hospital, and that was not only unethical, it was unconscionable," she said.

source: Chicago Tribune
 http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0607190214jul19,1,3620540.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed


Part 3:

SUNAPEE RESIDENTS WOULD CROSS COUNTY LINES TO SHOP IN SULLIVAN COUNTY
SUNAPEE - Although secession from Sullivan County would mean occasional trips to Concord for government business, most Sunapee residents say they would continue to shop in Newport and Claremont regardless of where their taxes go.
"Sure I complain about Washington Street, but it sure beats I-89," said Bob, a Sunapee resident who asked that only his first name be used.
Bob's reluctance to stand out a Claremont shopper is common among Sunapee-ites.
Jeff Withers, of the Claremont Chamber of Commerce polled more than 200 Sunapee residents. The vast majority claimed to do all their shopping in New London, with some citing Concord and the Hanover area as their destinations of choice.
"Based on the feedback I got, I wondered why I've ever seen a Sunapee dump sticker in Claremont," he said.
Only three Sunapee residents Withers talked to said they do "some" of their shopping in Claremont. None admitted to doing "all" of their shopping there.
Withers, who emphasizes the math is crude, extrapolated the numbers. He estimates that of 3,000 or so Sunapee residents, perhaps 2,000 actually buy groceries and housewares, the rest being too young to do so themselves.
"So I probably got about one in ten Sunapee shoppers. By that logic, only 30 in the whole town shop in Claremont," he said.
Withers spent much of Friday, Saturday and Sunday last weekend counting Sunapee stickers in the Claremont Wal-Mart parking lot.
"One hundred and fifty different cars all weeked," he said, adding that about the same number were observed in the new Home Depot parking lot.
"So I figure only about one in five Sunapee shoppers who shop in Claremont will admit it," he said.
Bob concurs.
"I got some great fish last weekend when my wife and I were entertaining some guests," he said. "When they asked where I got the salmon, without thinking, I found myself lying. I told them it was from Cricenti's, but I got it at the Price Chopper in Claremont."
He added that on the same trip he also bought a new sander at the Home Depot and some new bedding at Wal-Mart. He estimates between the three stores, he save more than $40 compared to New London prices.
Although no similar data is kept for Newport, Withers speculates the situation is about the same.
Kevin, another Sunapee resident describes a situation similar to that Bob has experienced. He related the story of how he was once "caught" by a neighbor shopping at Wal-Mart. He waited until 10 pm on a Tuesday, dressed down and left the Saab at home, taking a pickup truck he usually reserves for plowing his driveway in the winter.
As he was checking out his cart full of goods, he said he looked up to see his neighbor in the next aisle.
"I could tell he was as shocked as I was. He works in Lebanon, and claims he does all his shopping in the Upper Valley," Kevin said. "Neither one of us said anything . We just looked at each other and made an unspoken agreement - I didn't see you and you didn't see me."
In another survey, unsuspecting Sunapee residents were approached at Claremont and Newport stores and asked two questions. First they were asked if they supported the town's proposed seccession from Sullivan County, and then they were asked whether they would still shop where they do if Sunapee were part of Merrimack County.
The most common answer to the first question was a confused "huh?".
Signifigantly, even not a single Sunapee resident said he or she would change his shopping patterns based on county lines - even among those who said yes to seccession.
Some Sunapee residents have complained about the possible need to drive to Concord for county business, but most see it as worth it to keep more of money to themselves - and not have to be associated with their less well-heeled neighbors in the rest of Sullivan County.
"I mean, how often do you have to register a deed," said Fred Gagnon, a seccession supporter.
Gagnon, who has been advocating for the seccession even has an idea in mind for that.
"Well, Concord is far, and there's no law that says counties can't have two office buildings," he said. "But I wouldn't want it in Sunapee, since a government building would take land off the tax rolls, but it needs to be accessible. So if Sullivan would be agree, we could keep filing our stuff their and they can just forward it to Concord."
Gagnon went on to say that without the burden of policing lakefront property and Sunapee's highways, he hopes more sheriff's deputies will patrol Washington Street so he'll feel safe when he goes to the Home Depot.
"People from Lemspter make me nervous," he said. "It seems they like to shop in Claremont too."