Abandoned Forum

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Doctor, 2 nurses held in Katrina deaths
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13916867/
Arrest order: patients given morphine; 2nd-degree murder charges filed

NEW ORLEANS - 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.

Should the doctor be charged for murder when she tried to minimize the pain of a patient? Especially when the hospital is trapped by flooding, all power were lost, no drinking water available and those people who were accusing her of murder now refused to provide any assistance for many days after the storm? If she simply ran away, left the patient to die in pain, she of course wouldn't be charged with any murder, would she? If the soldiers who shot people by mistakes in Iraqi were not charged with murder, should a doctor who tried help people be charged with murder?

[Insanity test]

In war, if a soldier is in great pain and there is no hope of rescue, the medic will often give lethal doses of morphine to make their last minutes easier. To me this seems the same.

Come to that, in war, people kill other people. Is this not murder? Are the soldiers responsible? They are put into a situation where someone else will shoot at them if they don't shoot first. So whoever put them there should be tried.

Hurricaine Katrina was a natrual disaster. An act of god, if you will. However, it was a mammoth hurricaine in a season where there were so many that they ran out of pre-defined names for them and the last few were named as greek letters.
Is this a product of global warming? Should all responsible for global warming be tried for the deaths?

Maybe its simpler. Maybe it's the authorities who were ill prepared, or the government who acted so slowly. Maybe it's whoever designed that excess flow river through the dyke.

Or maybe it's easier to pin the blame and find some identifyable faces to parade.

But then whos to say they were right or wrong? Were we there?