(no subject)

[katallison]

A number of years back, I wrote a Highlander story set in an imaginary future, in which Duncan, trapped in a vicious rekindled Balkan war, ended up choosing to do something seemingly hideous, in the cause of mercy, and was afterwards torn with guilt. At the time I wrote and posted it, I thought to myself, Self, you are really being *way* over-the-top and highly implausible with the scenario you've posited here. Some people wrote me back saying, in effect, "Duncan would never do anything this horrid! Plus, this is an awfully damn unlikely scenario!" My reply to the first part was along the lines of "Mercy can take some strange forms"; I didn't really have a reply for the latter part, because I kind of agreed with them.

And then just now I read this.

Doctors working in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans killed critically ill patients rather than leaving them to die in agony as they evacuated hospitals. ...one New Orleans doctor told how she 'prayed for God to have mercy on her soul' after she ignored every tenet of medical ethics and ended the lives of patients she had earlier fought to save. ... One emergency official, William 'Forest' McQueen, said: "Those who had no chance of making it were given a lot of morphine and lain down in a dark place to die."

I am ... pretty much speechless. Heart breaking all over again, for everyone involved.

Comments

[engenda.livejournal.com]

That...that just makes me want to weep. For both the doctors and the patients.

The thought that that was their only options, saddens me unbearably as well and angers me.

[giglet.livejournal.com]

I am ... pretty much speechless. Heart breaking all over again, for everyone involved.

As am I. As is mine. Horrified.

[batdina.livejournal.com]

you know, I have to confess it never occurred to me that a compassionate doctor would do anything else. but it's still incredibly difficult to read about, isn't it?

[indywind]

ditto.
maybe I should make it explicit in the living will or somesuch paperwork, so that if some doctor ever has to make that decision over me they might feel less guilt.

[namastenancy.livejournal.com]

I could post another rant about Bush and the heartless, callous, mercenary people that are behind him but why repeat what's been said elsewhere (and better). But I hope that the doctors and nurses find a way to forgive themselves because their actions are the essense of compassion and I do not believe that the God/Goddess that I honor would find them guilty.


namaste sf nancy

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

I really hope those doctors & nurses aren't tried for murder, but I bet some of them will be.

[serialkarma.livejournal.com]

dear god

[brynwulf]

As we've all probably figured out by now...no matter how horrible and unlikely a scenario you can dream up... it's not the worst humanity is capable of.

[kamilaa.livejournal.com]

Dear God.

Linking.

oh man.

[kormantic.livejournal.com]

I feel like I just got punched in the stomach.

Oh, those people. All those poor people. Those poor fucking doctors.

[kadymae.livejournal.com]

And the really ironic thing is, according to stories told by family members of mine who were in WWII and Vietnam, that's not far from battlefield Triage. If somebody is dying in agony, and it's avalible, you give them morphine to ease the passage.

When my mother was dying in the hospital from combined liver&kidney failure, which is probably not a particularly *painful* death (from what we can gather, you just feel miserably shitty until you lapse into a coma) she was given several morphine injections just to be sure that she felt as little discomfort as possible. (I wish to God the nurse could've given her an overdose. I prayed for a miscalculation. It would've been better than those last 30 minutes of spasmotic, reflexive gasping.)

If anything these Doctors and Nurses should be given medals for allowing dying patients to go so quickly and painlessly rather than letting linger in discomfort or even agony for a miracle that will not come.

[tracy-rowan.livejournal.com]

I pray that if it ever comes down to it, there would be someone with that much courage and compassion helping me.

Teo Absolvo

[mz-bstone.livejournal.com]

Well.

Bless them.

And I hope that someone they trust forgives them, because I suspect some of them are going to be needing it -- not because the should be judged, but it sounds like they compromised a lot of deeply held beliefs to reach a deeper one. People often need forgiveness after that.

Poor bastards.

B

Re: Teo Absolvo

[leadensky.livejournal.com]

Yes, what you've said.

It's not the conflict between right and wrong, it's when you've two rights.

Or none at all.

God hold them all, hold all of us.

- hg

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

After reading morgandawn and thevetia's Long Way Home, which falls in line with the parallels you've made, I can probably say that I would buy your story completely. So, I'm sadly not surprised that this happened in New Orleans. I wonder if better preparation would have been able to save those people.

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

mylyn, you said: I wonder if better preparation would have been able to save those people.

From the sources I've seen, yes, better preparation by state and local groups would have helped enormously, would have made sure people knew where to go, and how to get out, and woudl have got food and meds there in time. But with no help from the feds, how? What are they supposed to do with one of the poorest areas of the country, with money taken from their levee funds, when they have so little to work with?
You have to pay for it with something, and property taxes sure weren't up for it down there.
Also, we turned down offers of help from Germany and Canada and all over the world for help such as firemen, paramedics, doctors, sheer masses of food stocks.generators, water pumps. I think the Canadians offered helicopters and amphibious planes, since all of our National Guard iones were over in Iraq--and we turned them down! NO, no, we're fine.
Between paramedics, choppers, and planes, YES WE COULD HAVE GOT A LOT MORE OF THOSE ELDERLY AND SICK PEOPLE OUT OF THERE.
Sorry to yell. As others say, it makes me feel sick, it makes me so mad.
Just locals doing advance work with no money wouldn't have done much about overtopping levees, but perhaps they might have been able to work out how to place some generators above flood water, so they'd have kept communication systems resistant to storm damage, so the cops and paramedics and so on could simply *talkt to each other.
As a result of no command/comontrl capabilities to speak of, there's stories of horrible confusion. You would expect a certain amount of that.
But *outside* the damage zone, by the feds? There's Reuters stories about trailers of ice and water sent off circuitously that they took over a week to get down to Memphis, for instance.
The organized fear and racism by the cops in the neighboring county, who drove back refugees--call them what they are--with guns to go back down into NOLA, even that too you might expect, given there was no central force establishing order, and they were panicking.
That said, federal government agency responses were very true to this Administration's Neocon view of government: to wit, "Drown government in the bathtub," one of the fave sayings of their political idealogues. In advance of this, knowing something like this would happen at some point, they systematically did everything they could to downgrade, defund, and extract jobs from any agecies that deal with restraining abuse and ensuring the actual public safety (vs, the imaginary one).
(Plenty of links on that one over on twistedchick, one of those folks I've read for some years now who's been posting links about that since Bush was elected.)
With any justice, this litle bathtub will drown this Administration--gotta be careful what you ask for--but nothing is certain.
I just wish it wasn't done on the backs of very ethical people who know what to do with morphine.

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

Preaching to the choir. I only wondered about better *preparation,* because obviously the recovery effort from day 1 was screwed to hell and back by the feds. But was there any way for the hospitals to be prepared for this from long *before* the hurricane hit land?

I mean, hospitals are often already full on a regular day. Imagine what the flood of people needing medical attention must have been after the hurricane hit. It's not like there are giant empty buildings sitting in the middle of every major city, with perfect stores of drugs and equipment and doctors with nothing to do, waiting for a tragedy to happen so they can serve people properly. Maybe there should be. Maybe FEMA should make that a priority. But I don't think anything, not offers of aid, not perfectly coordinated relief efforts, not flawless communication between organizations...I don't think anything could have helped the doctors dealing with overflowing hospitals, unless this was a perfect world.

The feds screwed up. I want to see Bush out of office. We should not be turning away the aid offers from other countries. Nobody's arguing those points here. I'm just wondering if anyone could have done any better. I wish it hadn't come to this.

[(Anonymous)]

The choir agrees with you on all points!
Actually, some of those big box stores have pretty big empty spaces that could be used for shelter/triage/wards, if they wanted to donate the store's available stock on the spot. I mean, Costco even stocks *generators*, right?

[mlyn.livejournal.com]

That's a possibility, but the doctor-patient ratio would still be tough to handle until additional help could get in...and regardless of the fact that the feds were deliberately keeping help from getting in, navigating those flood waters and torn-up roads and debris fields would have been a significant challenge. I think it could be done, though, if FEMA had actually done something worth its name and put a plan like that in place.

[ardent-muses.livejournal.com]

I didn't know this. What a horrible thing. Like we needed another horrible thing on top of all the rest. :(

[firesprite1105.livejournal.com]

Man, I just feel sick thinking about it, but I agree it was the best thing they could have done under the circumstances. Sigh.

[c-regalis.livejournal.com]

I am ... pretty much speechless. Heart breaking all over again, for everyone involved.

God. That's... I don't know what to say. I just hope they won't be tried for murder.

[geekturnedvamp.livejournal.com]

This really resonates with me because there's a scene in the movie The Day After Tomorrow where a doctor is in a similar position and I remember thinking that when I watched it--that is, that unlike the doctor in the movie I probably would have euthanized the patient and gotten the hell out of there (and then how awful would I have felt because of course there was a Hollywood happy ending after all?). But I think it's an impossible decision to make without guilt, and yes, heartbreaking. (Although I always bought Duncan doing what he did in 'Parting Glass').

[arallara.livejournal.com]

Oh, man. You know, I'm not surprised at all because I kind of thought about that when I heard about the situation in the hospitals. But in a sort of vague way, like kind of under the surface without really thinking too hard about the details. God. What a nightmare. I have so much compassion for those doctors and their patients.

[tehomet.livejournal.com]

That doctor and her colleagues did the right thing. No question.

[jackiekjono.livejournal.com]

This story got to me. It really did. then I noticed the total lack of any names of doctors patients or hospitals. then I noticed the total lack of a timeline. Then I realized that they hadn't actually told us whether or not the psycho drug addicts actually got into the hospital, if they hurt anyone once they did, when rescue workers actually showed up, and when they killed their patients relative to these other events. The only name we have verifying any aspect of this story is William 'Forest' McQueen who is represented as an emergency official.

According to this site, http://www.arniearnesen.com/ ,

" "I am looking for my husband who lives in Abita Springs and friends in
Covington and Folsom, do you know what has happened in these areas please?"

On September 6th, BBC News published an article that spotlighted Suzanne
McQueen's search for her husband along with a picture ("British families fear
for US relatives"):

Here are a few highlights from the September 6th article concerning Mr. McQueen:

"Mother-of-two Suzanne McQueen, of Maidstone, Kent, is waiting for news of
her American husband (William) Forest McQueen."

"He has been working in his home country since 1997, and lives and works
with his brother in the Abita Springs area, north of Lake Pontchartrain, which
is north of New Orleans."

"The couple married in the UK in 1991, and Suzanne said she and her
daughters - aged 11 and 13 - were planning to move to the US to join her husband
as soon as was possible."

"Part of his job there is to maintain the grounds of an old plantation
house, she said."

"I phoned the morning the hurricane hit, and his brother said Forest hadn't
been home for the last 24 hours because he'd been on shift clearing up trees and
lines from all the wind damage that came before the hurricane. I haven't heard
anything since."

The following day the BBC published another article about the family and
televised an interview with Suzanne and her two daughters, but this time William
Forest McQueen was referred to as her "estranged husband" ("Family's hope for
hurricane dad").

The article included some new details:

"She said Mr McQueen was living on the North Shore which she thought was
safe from flooding - until she saw pictures of Lake Pontchartrain Causeway which
connects Abita Springs with New Orleans. "Even on the North Shore houses have
been destroyed by the force of the wind rather than the flooding," she said.
"Most people I know are in Louisiana. I can't call people in different states
and ask them to try to contact him."

That same day The Telegraph picked up the story and added one other detail
("Nearly 100 Britons are still missing"):

"Mr McQueen, 43, had been working for the council in Abita Springs, where he
has been living with his brother Stephen."

So to recap.

The only disclosed source for this story about euthanasia in Louisiana is an
utility manager or emergency official or groundskeeper that may have been hired
by the Abita Springs council who works and lives with his brother over a
half-hour away from New Orleans where he is presently making phone calls to
inform relatives that patients have been murdered with morphine instead of
calling his family to let them know he survived."

I've got my doubts about this one.