This was a very disturbing book (non-fiction) about the goings on in Memorial Hospital in New Orleans during Hurrican Katrina.

This was a very desperate time when people didn't know when, if at all, help was coming. I wasn't there so it is hard to judge.

Questions of euthanasia and ethics permeate. Should euthanasia decisions be left to the patients and their loved ones or should doctors and nurses make that call in a dire situation.

This book upset me tremendously as I have been ill when I read it. I would definitely think many times before going into a hospital after reading this book. There is a lot that is assumed about care and responsibility that can go out the window in difficult situation.

I do not understand, in the end, how doctors and nurses gave injections of versed and morphine to eliminate certain patients and then (feeling that they were morally right in the situation) didn't do anything to notify the families of the the patients as to what happened - later on. Some of the family members who stayed with their relatives for days and were forced to evacuate practically at gunpoint with promises of ("we'll take care of your loved one" waited for MONTHS to find out what happened.

I cannot reconcile the actions of a doctor giving that injection who didn't move heaven and earth (covering her liability backside) to notify those families.

As to the choice to eliminate some patients and not others, I just do not know what to say. I found it terribly upsetting, but in that situation maybe I would have put them out of their agony, too, who knows. But I hope to God I would have had the humanity to notify the families and admit what I did.

Some day they will admit it to a higher authority and face the music.

the executive who snuck into the air conditioned (by a generator) part of the hospital while he left desperate patients and health care professionals to fend with nothing but hot air. He should have moved heaven and earth to share what he knew and to move them to the better place, not just selfishly enjoying it himself. Based on his performance I would never go near a Tenet Healthcare facility.

cry.

like the human race is pretty low for these "professionals" not to let those families know what happened. They had to find out through their own means.

it is well told. The author won a Pulitzer Prize for something else. This is profoundly disturbing to me and I wish I had not read it. But it was well written and documented. It made me feel sicker than I already do and sick for the whole human race.

I would have to say not following up with the families was a huge no-no in my books. My mother died that year (2005) and if anyone had done what these people did, I wouldn't promise to control anything about my reaction to that.

Only a weasel of a doctor or nurse does something and doesn't PERSONALLY face and explain to the families. Such a person has no business in medicine, in my opinion.

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Created Jan 10, 2014 at 12:01pm • Submit your own review...