The right thing was done:
A grand jury Tuesday declined to indict Dr. Anna Pou, the surgeon accused of killing four seriously ill patients in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Hopefully this saga has come to an end. Read more for extensive debate on the Anna Pou story.
Some blogosphere reactions -
PEU Report:
“The bad news is the grand jury declined to indict the doctor for second degree murder or conspiracy to commit murder. “Criminal doctors” was one leg of Carlyle’s two pronged defense. That a grand jury failed to bring charges against Dr. Anna Pou can’t be sitting well in the corporate offices on Pennsylvania Avenue. Now LifeCare may be held accountable for allowing uncredentialled providers access to their patients.”
Mary Johnson:
“But maybe now somebody will look up the food chain . . . at the hospital executives and local/state politicians who failed these patients . . . and these ‘health-care providers’ . . . . completely and utterly.”
Dr. Crippen:
“Dr Pou and Dr Munro have escaped prosecution. Dr Pou may yet have to face the American Civil Law vultures.
Personally, I remain profoundly uncomfortable with the actions that Dr Munro took. We may never know what Dr Pou and her nursing colleagues did or did not do.
But of one thing we can be sure. In cases such as this, the law is far too blunt an instrument.”
Anna Pou:
“I’m really putting Mr. Foti in God’s hands. I figure that he has to live with the decisions he’s made and I have been praying really hard, every day, that I can forgive him for all the pain and suffering that he has caused so many people that have been engaged in this case.”
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- Anna Nicole Smith: The medical blogosphere speculates
- Anna Pou speaks
- Walgreens charges $117 for a bottle of the same pills for which Costco charges $12
- Anna Nicole Smith’s psychiatrist
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{ 28 comments }
OJ Redux. Sigh.
“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.”"
I’m curious – do all you physicians believe that is your role?
The grand jury in it’s decision, decided that the state, when given the chance to present it’s case unrefuted, had no case, and the there was no reason to even go to trial.
Comparing this to the OJ nuclear defense team and it’s manipulations is completely unfair–their are no defense witnesses before a grand jury. It is a one sided affair.
Charles Foti is a senile old fool who is not qualified to be attorney general, and abused the power of his office in a stage-set “arrest” which didn’t even involve charges. He used this matter for his own political grandstanding and did not follow proper procedure, which would have been to turn over the result of his investigation to the Orleans Parish District Attorney in the first place–without the farsical reputation destroying circus of “arrests” and news conferences.
If the state attorney general, the chief law enforcement officer, can get away with using his office to destroy people against whom he doesn’t have a case, he can destroy whomsoever he chooses. It is hardly surprising that while several retired public officials spoke up to point out the inappropriate way he went about this, few still engaged in public life dared speak.
If he can do this to her, he can do this to anybody.
Morphine and versed are not a “lethal cocktail” only useful to kill as Fart Foti claimed. In a pitch black 110 degree hospital with suffering and dying patients, riotors trying to break in, and no signs of civilization returning, you use what is at hand to comfort and treat the suffering, and any benzodiazepine and any narcotic are fair game for treating anxiety and pain.
“To cure sometimes, to comfort always”
Does anyone know where Charles Foti was while the doctors were struggling to keep people alive?
I’m asking out of curiosity.
Charles Foti was probably helping William Jefferson get his bribe money out of the freezer.
It is a sad society that allows palliative medical practice to be dictated to be the money mad legal practices. Pray you never really need pain relief.Sandy. uk
Given the statements of other health care providers that she did do the act she was accused of, what was Foti supposed to do? It was taken to the grand jury, the citizens many of you are too dumb to understand medicine, and they made their decision.
Given what he had been told by the WITNESSES, how could he not take it to the grand jury?
Well, as for the “WITNESSES” you think are so reliable, everything printed in any reliable news source was never more than speculation and heresay.
If the “WITNESSES” couldn’t even convince a grand jury, which are notoriously pliable before prosecutors, it doesn’t seem as if they could have convinced any petit jury that they witnessed much at all.
Grandstanding on the heap of tragedy by Mr. Foti. One more disgrace for the state government of Louisiana.
Where in the newspaper were their statements ever released?
Is it your contention that on every case that the grand jury feels lacks sufficient evidence, that the law enforcement official who brings the case is grandstanding? Do you feel the same way about every cop who gathers evidence on cases that the DA declines to prosecute?
Witnessed what?
Dr. Pou with some Midazolam and Morphine?
Oh, yeah, I remember one of the witnesses quoted that “only nurses give injections”, therefore the doc must intend murder?
Did one of these “WITNESSES” actually see the “murder”?
Several dozen people died in that hospital during the disaster, as a result of their illnesses and complete lack of facilities. No light. No power. 110-degree heat. No oxygen. Ventilators off.
What Dr. Pou did was comfort care, with the well-known principle of “double effect”.
(and you went to law school??)
We don’t have the transcripts of what the nurses saw. Grand jury proceedings are secret. So again, without knowing what was said, how can you say whether or not it was a bad idea to take it to the grand jury?
Unless, of course, you believe every case the grand jury rejects is “grandstanding”.
And you went to high school?
Anon 10:05
Law enforcement didn’t just bring the case to the Grand Jury.
An incompetent STATE attorney general staged a public “arrest” of these people that had no legal effect. His role was to do an investigation and turn the results over to the Orleans Parish District Attorney who could then either arrest and charge them or submit to a grand jury.
For a long time, it was unclear if the district attorney was even going to bring it to a grand jury–which would have left them really flapping in the breeze. Publically arrested and accused by the states chief law enforcement officer but with no adjudication whatsoever. Talk about a career ending scenario. Permament legal limbo.
Whether there had been a basis for prosecution or not (and the Grand Jury says not), he went about it in a completely wrong way. It was pure political pagentry, on the back of a hard-working doctor who has a reputation for self-sacrificing commitment.
Anon 8:28
Foti didn’t take it to a grand jury. The district attorney did. If Foti had did his job, which was to investigate and then deliver his finding to the district attorney to act on them, then there wouldn’t be this controversy about his role.
It was what he did before it went to the grand jury. He steped out of bounds in a flagrant abuse of power fit for a fascist state.
Witnesses made all sorts of wild accusations that turn out to be implausible during the hurricaines. The chief of police hysterically reported atrocities that simply didn’t happen. Many people told weeping tales of seeing bodies chomped on by alligators–not one alligator chomped body was ever found. I heard people personally tell of seeing more children drown before their very eyes then actually died along the entire gulf coast. If we don’t exercise some judgement here, we could be in grand juries for a hundred years.
Yep, I went to high school. And college. And medical school. And Board-Certified in two medical specialties, with fellowship experience in palliative care and pain management. And experience with practice under disaster and Third World conditions.
And your experience is…….oh, yeah. Parasitism.
Yeah, I’d say that a doctor who was contacted and volunteers to present to authorities, then subsequently despite the assurance, the police come to lead her out in handcuffs…..yeah, I’d call that grandstanding on Foti’s part. Led her out after major surgery. And the phone call she got, she used to call another doc to arrange coverage.
She shows more class than your whole Bar association. I guess that’s why you’re seething.
I like this part.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3409526&page=1
Greg Beuerman, a spokesman for Pou, described her reaction today as “ecstatic, but not surprised.”
“I think it is noteworthy that throughout this whole process — since April — the only evidence presented to the grand jury was provided by the state and the attorney general,” Beuerman told ABC News. “We never came to a defense, and the grand jury concluded that Dr. Pou did nothing wrong. We are thrilled that this chapter is finally over.”
But don’t worry. The civil cases remain. There’s still ambulances you can chase.
Seriously, you’re showing your ignorance here. That’s how all grand juries work. The defense doesn’t put on their case.
Please, stop posting – you’re doing a better job of making yourself look the fool than I could hope to do to you.
Not one of you have a clue what the witnesses said. While I realize you’re all little Trent Lotts when it comes to malpractice, surely your ability to reach conclusions without facts don’t extend to all facets of life.
Attorney 8:12:
You are wrong and your facts are wrong.
The story was printed in detail with statements by named witnesses in The New Yorker magazine in a lengthy piece that followed the hurricane. Although no news source is unimpeachable, TNY has standards that generally lead the industry in fact checking. Unless the so-called witnesses withheld information, the substance of what they offered then was speculation and heresay. This includes the statements made by another physician working at the medical center during the hurricane with Dr. Pou and the accused nurses.
As for the grand jury, of course there wasn’t a defense case put on, it wasn’t a preliminary hearing where there would have at least been an opportunity to dispute a probable cause finding. I don’t see where anyone here is confused by that. You are trying to muddy the discussion by irrelevancy.
And the grand jury, what is usually the tool of the state, didn’t even find a probable cause. Imagine that.
Tell me, what kind of a prosecutor would make a show of public accusations then dump the duty of grand jury presentation onto someone else? Foti lacked the courage to follow through on what he had to know were weak and baseless accusations.
No prosecutor of any quality would take a case to a grand jury that did not have the strength to be made and won at trial.
I hope Dr. Pou and the nurses file a civil action against Mr. Foti. It would be worth the test that Foti acted so far outside the accepted standards of a prosecutor that his actions should be considered personal tort, not merely abuse of state duties. Let him smell the smoke.
Once again
“I think it is noteworthy that throughout this whole process — since April — the only evidence presented to the grand jury was provided by the state and the attorney general,” Beuerman told ABC News. “We never came to a defense, and the grand jury concluded that Dr. Pou did nothing wrong. We are thrilled that this chapter is finally over.”
Thank you for agreeing with me. The state presents their side, and only their side, yet still the grand jury did not feel there was any evidence of a crime.
No, I don’t know exactly what was said. YOU are the one who acts like you know. YOU are the one using the words “summary execution”.
Unlike you, I have experience with critical care, I have experience with desperate situations, I have experience with terminal care, I’ve practiced in Third World situations. Dr. Pou faced my worst day, only a hundred times worse.
As that same spokesman said, anybody with a television set knows what happened.
The jury, and anyone with a brain, knows what happened. If you want to go on thinking she killed someone, go ahead.
And we have had recent experience with grandstanding corrupt prosecutors after Nifong. So everyone recognizes Foti for what he is. Except you.
It’s amazing how you guys jump to assist any physician accused of anything, even when it’s other physicians accusing them. You don’t even need to know the facts.
Tell me, why don’t you demonize those witnesses who came forward?
It’s amazing how you jump to demonize the physician without knowing the facts.
Better yet, counselor, why didn’t the people charged with vetting the “witnesses” do their jobs? You know, that “pretrial” thing. Intesad they shot their mouths off to the ravenous post-Katrina media (no problem filling a press conference there) then took a half-assed case to the grand jury. Great work!
They are the ones who deserve “demonizing”. Them, and that unethical grandstanding buffoon Charles Foti.
“While I realize you’re all little Trent Lotts when it comes to malpractice”
CJD:
When you have to resort to strawman arguments, you’ve lost.
This business of criticising Foti has gone too far. How can you question the integrity of a man who served for decades as sheriff of Orleans parish, given the reputation of New Orleans government and especially law enforcement for the highest standards of integrity and honesty? A man who ran a parish jail with more inmates than the state penitentiary, funded by the eager contributions of awed tourists who, when they were found violating the city’s traffic regulation, were given a tour of the facility, rather than a ticket as in less hospitable burgs–and gladly made large contributions on the way out. As a bonus, these stop sign and no left turn scaflaws were treated to a full body and cavity exam, no extra charge.
“When you have to resort to strawman arguments, you’ve lost.”
Someone doesn’t know what a strawman is.
“Better yet, counselor, why didn’t the people charged with vetting the “witnesses” do their jobs? “
What about those witnesses’ statements was not credible? The mere fact that they questioned another physician?
>> Someone doesn’t know what a strawman is.
Someone doesn’t know what palliative care is.
>>What about those witnesses’ statements was not credible?
“Only nurses give injections”
The “null hypothesis” or “presumption of innocence” would be that the doctor was trying to provide palliative care to dying patients under extraordinary circumstances. Anybody who knows anything about medicine and had a television understood what the docs went through.
Unfortunately, the other “null hypothesis” with regards to Louisiana elected officials and government service is incompetence and corruption. William Jefferson. Police, in uniform, looting stores for luxury items. And again, it was on TV.
So no, it’s not hard to believe that the docs did the best they could, and a corrupt Louisiana official took some wild statement and used it for self-serving purposes.
The jury ruled as it should.
This is obvious to everyone except you.
>>”What about those witnesses’ statements was not credible? The mere fact that they questioned another physician?”
To wit: the “witness” said he saw saw Dr. Pou takling with nurses, and one of the nurses appeared to be crying and also that he saw Dr. Pou with some syringes.
It wasn’t the fact that he questioned another physician, it was the fact that what he claimed to have seen and heard would not by any reasonable standard be considered criminal activity. He did not say he saw Dr. Pou administer drugs to patient and he did not say he heard anyone say they were planning to euthanize a patient.
Patients died at that hospital. There was no electric power, no air conditioning, it was summer, in New Orleans, no sewage, no sanitation, no food service, the streets were flooded, armed criminals were invading the hospital. The patients in question were non-ambulatory, bedridden, in some cases ventilator-dependent. The hospital had evacuated all of the patients who could be moved. In that setting under those conditions, which is worse than most people have ever experienced, some of those patients died while under the care of the doctors at that hospital. Were the patients sedated more than might have otherwise been necessary had the disaster not have occurred? It wouldn’t surprise me. Tell me, counselor, what else would anyone be able to do to make them more comfortable? And is it possible that under the total stress of those living conditions the double effect of sedation might have a higher morbidity and mortality? It wouldn’t surprise me at all; but just being there would have likely have done that, the conditions being so utterly degraded.
So what this doctor-witness says he thinks he saw really amounted to not much: speculation and heresay. That patients died doesn’t make for manslaughter. It makes for disaster.
And that Mr. Charles Foti chooses to take that and tries to make political hay from it makes for rank indecency.
CJD can join Foti and Nifong and Jefferson for lacking common decency. A cheerleader for obvious political grandstanding, trying to ruin the lives of those who did have the decency to try and help.
Does it come with the law degree, I don’t know…..?
Here’s a NOLA editorial:
http://blog.nola.com/jeff_crouere/2007/07/finally_justice_served_in_new.html
Then again, Foti would know all about lethal cocktails, wouldn’t he? He also knows about people dying under his “care”.
http://www.lagop.com/documents/Foti.pdf
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