Grand Jury To Louisiana AG: You're Dead Wrong

Dr. Anna Pou, the surgeon who stayed with patients not-even-her-own when others ran away . . . and for her trouble was accused of "murder", will not be indicted. The nurses arrested with her were also spared indictment in Charles Foti's witchhunt.

Kevin cites early reaction within the medical blogosphere. CNN is on the story as well.

As it's well past my "bedtime" (stayed up to run some errands), I'll sleep on any comments for now.

But maybe now somebody will look up the food chain . . . at the hospital executives and local/state politicians who failed these patients . . . and these "health-care providers" . . . . completely and utterly.

Not that I'm biased or anything.

Evening (after-the-nap) Update: Anna Pou responds. She is still facing malpractice action from three of the four families involved.

This is a quote from the CNN link I found interesting . . . given my own experience reporting clinical badness to the NC Medical Board (a subject shortly to be tackled) . . . or serving as a medical expert in the prosecute-sex-crimes-for-the-notch-in-the-prosecutorial-belt-no-matter-what NC Court System:

But (Foti) noted that none of the alleged victims' relatives and none of five medical experts who independently concluded the deaths were homicides were called to testify before the grand jury.

In other words, in this case the "John Edwards factor" (emotion) was removed from the equation of fact presented to the jurors. I honestly don't think the families had a place in testifying before the grand jury. They were not at the hospital. Their time would have come had the case gone to trial and a verdict been rendered.

They've filed their malpractice suits.

Whether or not the "independent" medical experts were actually called to testify, I find it hard to believe that their conclusions (which, of course, supported the AG's charges) were not considered by the grand jury. If it wasn't, what exactly did Mr. Foti and his minions present?

Perhaps the grand jurors understood that these doctors and nurses were abandoned to hell . . . days of no electricity & third-world conditions . . . and anything they were doing (and any medication they were giving) was quite literally "blind" in the horrific heat and the stench and the dark.

It seems these jurors understood that the medical experts testifying against Dr. Pou and her colleagues are little more than back-seat drivers of the boat that everybody missed.

Whether or not what they did was deliberate (which I still find hard to comprehend), or a tragic mistake, or an act of God, this doctor and these nurses will have to live with what happened for the rest of their lives.

I bet now they wish they'd left New Orleans before the storm . . . with the rest of their (medical and business) colleagues who left those patients to rot.

And here's another thing about this whole mess: If I am to believe the pharmacy technicians and hospital executives who told law enforcement that they KNEW something amiss was up AND DID NOTHING TO STOP IT . . . why weren't they charged?

Perhaps I'm just a little bit suspicious of the motives and testimony of these people (very quick to offer up the medical personnel on platters as they dodge scrutiny and accountability themselves), since I've been in the position of stopping medical badness as it went down . . . and I got professionally slaughtered for it.

The men of business who slaughtered me got big fat raises on the public's dime, and now speak of "legacies". Please.

North Carolina law is very clear that I should have been vindicated long ago. But for all of the lip-service about "ethics", my medical board and my attorney general don't give a damn about doctors and patients caught in the crossfire.

I really have no use for people who run away.