As noted in this previous post, the arrest in Louisiana of former University of Texas Health Science Center professor and physician Dr. Anna Pou on wrongful death charges for her actions in attempting to save lives during the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is an egregious example of prosecutorial misconduct.
As is typical in such cases, word is now filtering out about the real motivations for the prosecution. Not only is an elderly Louisiana attorney general who campaigned on a plank of “cracking down on abuse of the elderly” at the center of the dubious decision to arrest, this NY Times article reports that Dr. Pou’s accusers are three employees of LifeCare Hospitals, the company that owned the facility where 24 out of 55 elderly patients died in the aftermath of Katrina and whose top administrator and medical director didn’t even show up at the hospital during those chaotic days. It turns out that the accusing LifeCare employees didn’t make any effort to evacuate the elderly and sick patients, either. Does this have the smell to you of someone attempting to distract attention (or perhaps avoiding prosecution) from their own indiscretions?
Dr. Kevin Pho of Kevin, M.D. is doing a good job of keeping up with the reactions and commentary around the web to the case against Dr. Pou and the nurses. The case against Dr. Pou is the other side of the same coin that the government flips when it criminalizes risk-taking by businesspersons, so stay tuned to developments in this troubling prosecution.
Houston's Clear Thinkers
Longtime Houston attorney Tom Kirkendall's observations on developments in law, business, medicine, culture, sports, and other matters of general interest to the Houston business, professional, and academic communities.
What concerns me is that so many people are assuming that Dr. Pou and the 2 nurses intentionally killed 4 people. I’ve seen comments on a lot of posts stating that being in crisis mode does not justify mercy killing. Although I agree with that, isn’t it more likely that these patients had kidney failure from dehydration and were unable to metabolize what is normally a correct dose of a medication, thus resulting in an overdose? An ENT physician is not used to practicing internal medicine, and none of us trained in the US are trained for power outages and a crisis like the one Dr. Pou was involved in.
Keep this on the radar.