So, You Say you’re Against Mercy Killing

So, You Say youre Against Mercy Killing. Abstract This paper examines trio sources of information regarding the events at Memorial Hospital in New siege of Orleans during Hurricane Katrina and throughout the wait for evacuation. It explores the ethical dilemmas of those left to care for the sick. The primary(prenominal) issue, gentleness killing, was foisted upon some of the staff with the added stressors of very little sleep, food, relief staff, or maintenance from governmental agencies.The sources are used in a deliberate get down to sympathise between the lines of how perceptions and memories may view as been affected over while as well as the self-preservation and rotection sought from those in charge. Keywords ethical dilemma, pardon killing I wrestled wit n the issues involved in this story. I always prided myselt as an absolutist. I reserve always felt benevolence killing to be wrong unequivocally. I saw it as a way to dispose of the unwanted of society. I was alway s reminded of the infamous shout out whenever the term benevolence killing would be uttered and that is the name just intimately people associate with the term Hitler.He used that excuse to exterminate 6 million innocent people. To hear the word made me physically ill. Thats why I wrestled with the ethical issues in this article to the arcdegree in which I did. This was not an easy account to come to grips with. After reading the events that transpired I have come to a dissolveial change of heart. In belatedly August 2005 the staff at Memorial Hospital, owned by dogma Hospitals in Houston, was fix to weather the storm. They had wea on that pointd hurricanes before and they thought they were braced for it. I dont think anyone could be prepared for what was about to ensue.The rain and winds hurled their attacks, simply the hospital stood strong. The people of the community that used the hospital as their protection were safe and sound. All was relatively calm until the foll owing day. That is when all cuckoos nest broke loose. Decisions were made that are hard to delineate as lesson or immoral. There were no easy answers. I dont think there were any hard answers. There were Just unachievable dilemmas with equally impossible answers. One year afterward the hurricane, it would be front page word that two nurses and a well-known physician would be arrested for second degree murder. 5 people died at Memorial Hospital that week and 17 of them had been injected with morphine or midazolam or both. There is a embarrassment of characters involved in this story and all had a different part to play, in what some say was easing suffering atients pain, and others would call mercy killing. To get a clearer picture of this incident, you will need to be introduced to the main characters. Dr. Pou was a head and neck cancer surgeon who was later arrested on 2nd degree murder charges for euthanizing 4 patients. Fink, 2009) Richard Deichmann was a newly promoted exe cutive who helped oversee the physicians during the crisis and was instrumental in the decision to evacuate patients with a ending illness or a DNR status last. Susan Mulderick was the rotating emergency-incident commanding officer and nursing coach that also participated in medicating patients that were not thought o survive. Diane Robichaux was the incident commander for LifeCare Hospital. She advocated tor the evacuation ot ner patients . LiteCare leased the seventh tloor ot Memorial and cared for long term sub-acute patients.Therese Mendez, a LifeCare nurse executive, complied with requests to dismiss her staff knowing her patients were going to be euthanized. Steven Harris was the LifeCare pill pusher who provided Dr. Pou with additional morphine and a strong anti-anxiety medication, midazolam. Ewing Cook was a pulmonologist who euthanized the first gear patient and instructed Dr. Pou how much medication to give to ease the patients suffering. Cheri Landry and Lori Budo w ere ICU nurses that concord with other staff members that the last LifeCare patients left on the floor should be euthanized.They were arrested with Pou, but also not indicted. I am a discursive person. Two and two make four. In reading the account of what happened after Katrina, I am full of questions. Many of which are never answered by the New York Times article or any of the sources I have found. The more I explore the circumstances of this unfolding story and read between the lines, the more morally outraged I become about what appened and didnt have to as well as the blame game that seems to have ensued. As the story goes, from the accounts reported in the Times piece, all nut house broke loose in New Orleans after the storm.