Sheri Fink "Five Days at Memorial"
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- Опубліковано 15 жов 2024
- Fink combines the sharp eye of a Pulitzer-winning journalist with the hard-won experience of a disaster-relief doctor to chronicle the events at New Orleans's Memorial Medical Center during Hurricane Katrina, and to raise questions about the country's handling of disaster. Under horrific conditions, Memorial's health-care workers saved those they could-and later faced charges about their treatment of the others.
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Hearing her talk about a possible pandemic where we'd have to ration ventilators is a bit haunting after going through Covid. Im an ICU nurse and it sounds like an impossible task what these people had to go through.
@@m_c5169 I agreed. The focus was on the doctors had to do rather than what the pathetic agency and government responses should have been and how they were all forced to leave the patients behind. And also these DR patients were going to be left on their own WITHOUT water or food or anything in 107'F heat, boxed insided the building with toxic air filled with human wastes, etc. Were doctors to leave them in such inhuman torture condition for week(s) to unknown period of time? We know now of course that it took more than 7 days. Can these DR patients survived without food and water and such horrid condition on their own for 7 days (preceived as unknown lengthy duration)? Minutes can feel like eternity in such condition knowing no one would be coming for them at the time. Had government and local authority willing to give them more time to evacuate with additional helping hands, those patients may have lived. The doctors and nurses and everyone were forced to leave regardless of patients. Those are the ones we should have questioned. Goodness, after almost 2 decades, they still don't see what needed to be focused on vs. the doctors and nurses who did their best to take care of patients. Who would wanna stick around the next time hurricane is coming?
So crazy to hear
Thank you dr Fink for explaining the dilemmas in the hospital during Katrina!
She is brilliant! Amazing speaker 👏🏽
Here after seeing the movie trailer of this tragic event. It’s hard to believe this really happened 😞
What blows my mind is the lack of accountability from the administrators who run the hospitals.
The lack of accountability by all our politicians period!!! Evacuation was mandatory for all!!! No exceptions!!
amen!!!!
Medical staff are “beneath” a hospital administrator whose character is no different than a politician.
Corporate owned hospitals make sure that “doctors” and “ nurses” keep in line with what is and isn’t “acceptable” medical care. The hospital administrator has a masters degree in hosp adm; compRe that to the level of education a doctor has. The medical staff is under the thumb of federally funded corporate hospitals.
Its clear as with COVID, orders on how to operate come from “corporate” , doctors practice medicine with hands in handcuffs.. If they step out of line they have their license taken away.
I'm sorry that this happened to Memorial and Charity Hospitals. It's unreal how the government let you all down.
My daughters, now 31 and 35 were both born at Charity Hospital. It never reopened after Katrina. It was the only place the uninsured could go to for care.
She's so intellectual & such an awesome speaker, I'd love to hear her talk @ my University
Very knowledgeable speaker on a very challenging subject...would love to hear her speak in person.
Extremely brilliant author and professional.
I'm from and still live in South Louisiana. I'm never shocked or surprised when people in the path of deadly hurricanes are not evacuated! Politicians generally fail when it comes to disasters here. Everyone knew every person had to be evacuated before a cat 5 storm arrived! No one should ever attempt to "ride out" anything stronger than a small cat 3!! Those in power should have evacuated everyone of those patients and staff! Nursing home patients were also abandoned to die in Katrina too! It's wrong and everyone here knew that!! It was murder in my mind!!
Funny,how i and many have to read this in a comment section, everyone should know about this,because they do know about it,days ahead,they could of used school busses,
How long can a nurse squeeze a manual ventilator? 1 hour? 24 hours? 5 days? How long can a juvenile manually squeeze a manual ventilator? What would the event have been like had the authorities listened to the U.S. Corp of Engineers in 1965 and put continuous levees at the lakefront rather than keep the miles of multiple outfall canal levees in place. It as those outfall canal levees that failed. This would have put water pumps at the lakefront instead of keeping them in the middle of the city, effectively bringing the Gulf of Mexico into the center of the city. Nothing happens in a vacuum and decisions made at one point in time have an effect on what happens years later. New Orleans has had terrible leadership for a long time. But laissez les bons temps rouler.
21:40 ration ventilators is exactly what happened during the pandemic.
Will read the book
No situation in America compared to Katrina at that time. If you don’t do our job, don’t judge us. Reverse triage is a common practice in war/mass casualty incidence… as for the amount of medication or choice of drugs, those are common combinations and not exceptional doses. I wish someone would pay as much attention to the lawlessness of the city and lack of appropriate response to help all hospitals and people. Do not make people who already agonize over not being able to do their job properly because of limited resources. Dr. Fink I have a hard time believing you are an Ivy League physician and could not understand that a culmination of issues not just one issue, I.e., medication contributed to the death of so many.
Most people who support the staff who were put in an impossible position are not going to comment here. I fully support the heroes who did what they thought was right in a nightmare scenario.
I knew you were a smart cookie even when you were working at the gas station you also had a glow to you under the windmill on the farm❤️
I am a nurse, and cannot imagine what it must have been like either as a patient, a medical professional, a family member, volunteer, as they face this disaster. But I also know if I came upon an animal suffering, with no hope of help, I would have no problem ending their suffering with a high dose of medication. So why if we can easily end an animal’s suffering, why can we not end a human’s suffering? I am sure soldiers felt it was their duty to shoot a brother and then themselves when the thought of being taken as a prisoner was their option in times of war. I would rather go with an injection then lay there and linger, knowing my death was eminent. So I applaud those who had the courage to end their lives with as much dignity as possible.
I feel the same way as you do that sometimes, in extreme situations (I am also pro end of life assistance to terminal patients who are aware and give consent until the end to end their suffering in some situations) and as far as the staff atmemorial, I had felt that way when I heard this story (the short version) all those years ago.
However, recently I stumbled across it all again and have been reading, researching and listening to everyones stories who came out with one who was there. I'm feeling differently about some of the "euthanizing" that happened after Katrina at memorial.
I don't hold too strong of a judgment either way, because I was not there.
But my personal feeling about some of those euthanized, was it was not only done to patients who were at deaths door, or even in the patients best interest at times to ease suffering, but seems it may have been done out of the staff needing to get out of a horrifying situation and deciding some people were preventing their rescue and it was not a question to leave them behind alive to god knows what.
Obviously the Dr and nurses were not doing it maliciously, and they would not have done it if they did not feel it was necessary.
My husband says he would want to be left alive to fight no matter what. I say I would lose my mind the first dark night, not being able to move and at the mercy of who knows what. As well as hearing those around you suffer and pass away one at a time. Let to only sleep, dehydrate, wonder the worst and feel no longer human, no longer loved, and beyond abandoned. Hebsuggested a button to inject it theirselves. But that would take a lot of time to make and set up for each individual, and most would opt for the button, then regret it later.
I struggle with the scope of the disaster and how multiple evacuations happened, despite loss of communication, many capable individuals being evacuated, how was no one able to even get a few retired army, officers security to come to the hospital to provide protection until everyone was removed, or stong volunteers to help transport the heavily set patients?
Reguarding the discussion of teaching doctors to practice in high tech and no tech, that's a no brainer to me. Also the resources a hospital has for such a disaster, training on what to do when, for such large multi story buildings that house the vulnerable like these people, there should be some way to get patients up and down floors quickly without much physical stress to medical personnel when the elevators are down. Some pully system or hand crank.
I know it is easy to speculate not having been there or even in Katrina.
From what I have learned, patients with DNRs, no matter their prospective outcome or reason for being there, were automatically put into group 3.
Being a nurse yourself, you know that doesnt always mean they're at their end of life.
I feel for those who lost loved ones, and hope those left behind are at peace.
Also thank you so much for being a nurse. You are Angel's to so many.
I can’t imagine having to make that choice either but what about the guy who just weighed too much?
Everyone should have been evacuated, period! It was a cat 5, meaning it was unsurvivable!!
@@debbiemann2752 Those DR patients were going to be left on their own WITHOUT water or food or anything in 107'F heat, boxed insided the building with toxic air filled with human wastes, etc. Doctors and nurses were forced to leave the building and were told that there were no one coming back for them. The water was 10 feet high. Hours can feel like eternity in such condition, especially knowing no one would be coming for them at the time. (Had government and local authority willing to give them more time to evacuate with additional helping hands, those patients may have lived.) Will he survive on his own without food and water for unforeseen length of time? Should the man be left on his own (and he was paralyzed) in such terrible living condition? All of this should have been focused on the local authorities and government assistance and emergency response. Tenet and LifeCare mother companies/owners.
21:43 😬 oh you have no idea
Without airconditioning heat stroke can be lethal!
where is dr. kovokaron? why must dying be prolonged?
they left all patients in nursing homes the staff abandon them
Ah, the before-times...
I am a former hospice director who understands end of life and euthanasia. What Pou did was simply murder.
Yep. Assisted suicide is always a choice by the individual. These poor people weren't even INFORMED of their looming deaths so they could say a final prayer or anything. Just murdered without consent or warning.
I'm a retired MD. I agree.
I’m a nurse and I agree. I was also down there during Katrina, but wasn’t a nurse at that time. But it doesn’t sound like it was just Dr. Pou. It sounds like many were involved and many more were opposed to it. What I’m wondering is how come not one of the people opposed to it tried to actively stop it. I’m reading the book now, so I don’t know the whole story just yet. I certainly believe in comfort care but not when the choice isn’t made by the patient or the patient’s family. I don’t think I could ever do that to my patients. I would have stayed with them and risked my life until someone could come rescue them or they died naturally. I would have given meds to make them comfortable, but not enough to kill them. If they died of natural causes then I would know I had done the very best I could do. And I know what the conditions were down there because I was stuck in a shelter for about 8 days - the bottom floors flooded and I had a toddler and a newborn baby to care for. It was absolutely miserable. By about the third day people were getting really frustrated and deteriorating mentally. So I do have compassion for all of the medical staff because I cannot even imagine what a nightmare they went through in regards to watching their patients suffer. It was also heartbreaking to read about the pets being euthanized. And it kind of pissed me off to read about how the nursing director became frustrated with people who were upset over their pets. That woman seems to have no compassion. It’s beyond me as to why those types choose the field of nursing.
The four of you here, you are the sane ones. Thank God for you
It's very easy to judge from the comfort of your kitchen. I wouldn't dream of judging unless I walked in their shoes.
Interesting check out st rita's nursing home
Exactly.
That is because we rely on government so much.