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1.How did the final count of patient deaths at Memorial Hospital compare to other health care facilities?
On page 231, we are told that there were more deaths at Memorial compared to other health care facilities. A horrible tragedy (and crime) that occurred at St. Rita’s (nursing home) in St. Bernard Parish. There were 30 residents who drowned in flood waters from failed levees. And the owners who were meant to evacuate these residents before the storm, ran away to avoid responsibility and accountability for these deaths. We are told on page 236 that an anonymous letter tipped off the government authorities that at Touro Infirmary, 16 bodies of patients were found, and one patient was left alive and abandoned. The situation at Touro lead to government investigators opening cases and looking into all the hospitals for intentional deaths and abandonment of patients including Memorial.
2. What would Tenet have to show to demonstrate no wrongdoing with regard to patient deaths?
On page 232, Tenet received a request by phone from government investigators to present a list of deceased patients along with a copy of the hospital’s disaster plan. If the hospital showed a demonstration of following the disaster plan the case would be closed quickly and they would have no wrongdoing in the patient’s deaths.
3a. How were families informed about the deaths of their loved ones by Tenet?
It took two weeks after the evacuation of Memorial for Tenet to inform families. During those two weeks, Tenet had to secure the medical records and create medical face fact sheets for the deceased patients and contact their families directly. Tenet employees had to call the families over the phone and were told by Tenet attorneys to follow a strict script when telling the families of how their loved ones died (page 236).
3b. What happened to the patients evacuated by Tenet busses and helicopters?
Some of the patients were airlifted to other hospitals, some patients were brought to Cloverleaf (made up field hospital at I-10), and the patients last to be evacuated at the hospital did not get too far and ended up at airports. On page 237, we are told that Rodney Scott was airlifted to New Orleans Airport and left in a paper gown on the concourse with no one looking after him! According to page 238, the hospital executives were looked after better than the patients. The executives were brought to a Tenet hospital in Dallas, given a hot meal, a room to shower…and picked up on a helicopter flown to Hattiesburg, Mississippi then flown on a private jet to their preferred destination. The buses took execs also to upscale hotels in Dallas and reunited them with their loved ones.
4. What do the investigators learn from family members of the deceased? From the autopsy? Why is midazolam so important to this case? Morphine?
On page 256, Rider and Schafer interviewed the families of three Life Care patients, one family was the Savoies – the daughter, Mary Lou, and grandson, Doug, of Rose Savoie, who was one of the patients who roomed with Alice Hutzler. Rider and Schafer were told that both women (Rose and Alice) were very aware and able to tell a doctor that they were not in pain or anxious. And Rose was sitting up and talking, not on any meds or IVs, recovering well and with it. It was a shock that she was suddenly not OK and found dead.
We learn on page 259, and from the 18 autopsies done by National Medical Services that abnormally high amounts of morphine were found in nine cases, and six of those cases are positive for midazolam. Midazolam’s brand name is Versed, and it is in the class of benzodiazepines. Versed is a very important finding in this case because it is used in operating suites for incubating patients going into surgery and being put on a respirator. It’s not something people get for a home prescription and there is no reason for someone to have a high compound of Versed in their body unless they are being operated on all the time. It’s an abnormal finding in these patients too, which gives the investigators more reason to believe that incidental deaths did occur at the hospital. They need the medical records to confirm this finding.
5. Discuss Butch Schafer’s mantra, “Don’t. Get. Emotionally. Involved” (261*) taking into consideration his personal situation.
No matter how much evidence they gather to prove there were intentional killings at the hospital – they cannot get ahead of themselves since these cases never turn out the way you hope or plan. Yes, they have proof of these lethal doses through forensic toxicology findings, but they need witnesses who saw the doctor and nurses injecting patients. They needed more evidence to prosecute Dr. Pou and the nurses involved in court.
As for Schafer, he was still grieving the loss of his daughter. His daughter died of an accidental overdose of prescribed medications for her rheumatoid arthritis and the medications she was on were not cross checked for bad side effects and conflicting medications that lead to her death by her doctors (on page 261).
3a. How Tenet informed the families of their love one’s deaths – aside from the strict guidelines Tenet (and their attorneys) set up for callers to follow on page 236 – it wasn’t any higher ups or Dallas employees that told the families but a team of eight callers – two callers were Karen Wynn and Susan Mulderick. They had to tell the families their love ones died especially after being through this whole ordeal.
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