Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Hey, Charlie, I think you missed one

Now that Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti has arrested several health care workers for their actions after the Federal Flood, I look forward to the announcment of the arrest of this FEMA worker for murder by order of our Grand Inquisitor.

From a 9/16/05 post on Wet Bank Guide:

FEMA orders doctor to leave survivors to die

Apparently, his paperwork was not in order.

Doctor says FEMA ordered him

to stop treating hurricane victims

In the midst of administering chest compressions to a dying woman several days after Hurricane Katrina struck, Dr. Mark N. Perlmutter was ordered to stop by a federal official because he wasn't registered with the Federal Emergency Management Agency."I begged him to let me continue," said Perlmutter, who left his home and practice as an orthopedic surgeon in Pennsylvania to come to Louisiana and volunteer to care for hurricane victims.
"People were dying, and I was the only doctor on the tarmac (at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport) where scores of nonresponsive patients lay on stretchers. Two patients died in front of me.


The orignal link to the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate is gone, but I'm not the only person who commented on this travesty.

I think Foti's action is sordid political grandstanding; nothing more than a crass play to the pews in the cult of neo-christianity. If the care givers acted as reported, it would be better--in our Attorney General's opinion--if those patients had just been left behind to die slowly and painfully in the way his god intended. They could have offered up their final suffering in penance, the way the nuns instructed us to do in Catholic school.

Foti's decision completely disregards the circumstances: the single worst disaster in the history of the United States. The alleged crimes would be extraordinary measures in an extraordinary situation, one most of us can barely contemplate but which hundreds of emergency workers suffered through without relief from God or government. Foti's action is like trying soldiers in combat for murder of collateral casualties. I think it also sends a pretty clear message to all future rescue workers. Make triange decisions, maybe go to prison for the rest of your life. Better maybe if you just didn't come.

We are also waiting for Mr. Foti to announce his indictment not just of the FEMA workers noted above, but also of the commanding officers of the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers for negligent homocide in the death of another 1,000 plus residents of his state. But I'm not holding my breath.

Personally, I think we should handcuff Mr. Foti to something very secure in the lowest level of a building next storm, with a hacksaw in easy reach, and see what sort of decisions he might make under similar circumstances as the water rises about him.




Comments:
Yes -- precisely. Right on point. I talked to a doctor who, while she admitted that she couldn't have seen everything doctors were doing, what was happening was a complete disgrace. And by that, she wasn't talking about what the doctors were doing. She was talking about the failure of armed forces personnel, once they arrived, to evacuate the most dire cases, for one ... two ... three ... four days ... while doctors tried to keep them alive without electricity. People died despite the best efforts by doctors to save their lives. Every one of them should get Congressional Medals of Honor.

A complete disgrace.

How about putting Foti in the care of Marlin Gusman if there's another storm -- inside a cage with water rising around him.

This goes back before Hurricane Katrina, but does anyone recall the Willie Fontenot case -- there's a fine example of Foti's principles.
 
Attaboy, Markus. I'll be following up on my post soon.

Yo, Schroeder is there any blog you haven't commented on today?
 
These charges (at Southern Baptist) seem to me to be a pro-life political bid by Foti et al. Consider that Catholicism is the de facto state religion. Dr. Pou's lengthy CV does show one workshop on assisted suicide, but what does that prove? Like it or not, doctors do have to make the decision, ethically, under such extreme circumstances. Note also this story from the UK:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0913-01.htm

I knew Willie Fontenot years ago when he and Wilma Subra went head-to-head with Shell Norco for pumping chromium directly into the bayou at well-above-legal rates. Shells' outtake valves were classified as the "headwaters." Even Gamit spiked the story. I ands others saw Subra take a foot-long core sample of chromium from the bayou's bottom on that trip. Circa 1988. I suspect any hassling of Fontenot comes from his asking the right questions of those in power.
 
CORRECTIONS:

Shell's outtake valves were classified as the "headwaters." Even Gambit spiked the story. I and others saw Subra take a foot-long core sample of chromium from the bayou's bottom on that trip. Circa 1988. I suspect any hassling of Fontenot comes from his asking the right questions of those in power.
 
Foti must be stopped now. What his is doing is beyond hypocracy. He's running what's left of the the medical community out of the state, never to return. It's absolutely fatuous. I agree with Schroeder, all the medical staff that stayed behind for the storm should be honored, not treated like scum.
 
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