Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital

Cheyne-Stokes breathing, a “revving and stalling pattern” (299), occurs near death and is given as a reason Dr. Pou drugs certain seriously ill patients who then die. However, Cheyne-Stokes also occurs in patients with brain or heart damage who are merely asleep.

Euthanasia is the act of ending a person’s life to relieve their pain and suffering. Medical professionals generally consider euthanasia unacceptable and immoral, and most jurisdictions outlaw it, but in recent decades it has won support from advocates who favor that choice as an option during end-of-life care. Euthanasia is central to the investigation of the many suspicious deaths at Memorial hospital during the Katrina disaster. Evidence points toward an active decision by doctors to euthanize the most seriously ill patients, who, the doctors believe, are unlikely to be rescued. Euthanasia becomes a major talking point in the many discussions held afterward in the media and among healthcare professionals. Legislation is enacted in several states to indemnify medical workers who might, in an emergency, make decisions that lead to patient deaths and expose those workers to charges of homicide.

Homicide is the killing of one person by another. Not all homicides are intentional or malicious; accidents and negligence often cause homicides. Euthanasia can be thought of as a form of homicide; usually it is outlawed and prosecuted as murder, but controversy swirls around the issue of whether euthanasia might be appropriate in certain extreme situations.

At one point a Category 5 storm, the most violent and destructive, Hurricane Katrina makes landfall just east of New Orleans in late August 2005, where it unleashes floodwaters that cause a major disaster. Memorial hospital’s lower floors are inundated, causing a breakdown in medical services while trapping patients, staff, and others inside the building. 

A levee is a berm or embankment built up to protect areas from flooding. New Orleans, portions of which are several feet below sea level, relies on a system of levees and canals that divert water from the Mississippi River and nearby lakes. During Hurricane Katrina, levees fail, and water from Lake Pontchartrain pours into downtown New Orleans, causing flooding as deep as 15 feet, including around Memorial hospital.

LifeCare is a company that provides long-term acute care for severely ill patients. Its facilities in New Orleans are flooded during Hurricane Katrina, and many of its patients are moved to the seventh floor of Memorial hospital, where LifeCare holds a lease. When Memorial becomes a death trap, the company does its best, along with other rescue teams, to evacuate their patients, but many of them are euthanized by Memorial staff before the patients can be rescued.

Often referred to in later years by its original name, “Baptist,” Memorial hospital opens in 1926 in downtown New Orleans and becomes a fixture there. Over the decades, it adds wings until the center spans two blocks on a side. During Hurricane Katrina in 2005, it suffers catastrophic flooding and other damage that leads to the deaths of 45 patients, many under suspicious circumstances. The hospital’s owner, Tenet Healthcare, sells it to Ochsner Health System, which refurbishes the buildings and reopens them under the name Ochsner Baptist Medical Center. 

New Orleans is a large metropolis located near the mouth of the Mississippi River, where the city is subject to frequent flooding. Its system of levees and canals break down during Hurricane Katrina, and floodwaters inundate the downtown area, including Memorial hospital. The city is noted for its rich cultural heritage and diverse ethnicities, but also for heat and humidity, entrenched racial bias, and political corruption.

When patients cannot be cured, doctors focus on ways to relieve pain so the patients may at least be more comfortable. This is called palliative care, and it applies to some people with chronic conditions as well as those suffering from inoperable cancers or other terminal diseases. At Memorial hospital during the Katrina disaster, the palliative care given to some critical patients edges over into euthanasia as Dr. Pou and a few others increase pain-relief drug dosages to the point where they cause the patients to die.

Tenet is the corporate owner of Memorial Medical Center in 2005. Under a cloud at the time for scheduling unnecessary heart operations at one of its health centers, Tenet’s response to the Katrina emergency is slow and disorganized, and its New Orleans facilities suffer as a result. Tenet later sells those properties, including Memorial hospital.