quote:
Pou (pronounced ``Poe'') and two nurses were arrested last summer after Attorney General Charles Foti concluded they gave ``lethal cocktails'' to four patients at the flooded-out, sweltering Memorial Medical Center after the August 2005 storm.
[...]
When the levees broke in New Orleans, 80 percent of the city flooded. The lower level of Memorial Medical Center was under 10 feet of water, and electricity was out across the city. Inside the hospital, the temperature topped 100 degrees.At least 34 people died at the hospital, many from dehydration during the four-day wait for rescuers. In the ``60 Minutes'' interview, Pou stressed: ``Anytime you provide pain medicine to anybody, there is a risk. But as I said, my role is to help them through the pain.''
Other doctors who were there described the situation as resembling a MASH unit during wartime rather than an urban American hospital.
``It was stifling. We were hoisting patients floor to floor on the backs of strong young men. It was as bad as you can imagine,'' Dr. Gregory Vorhoff, who stayed throughout the storm and eventually hitched a ride on a boat to seek help, told The Associated Press after Pou was arrested.
The four patients Pou was accused of killing ranged in age from 61 to 90. Foti said all four would have survived if they had not been given morphine and midazolam hydrochloride.
Autopsies were performed, but the results were not released because of the grand jury investigation.