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Charges dropped against doctor at New Orleans hospital during Hurricane Katrina

Patient Safety Monitor Alert, July 23, 2008

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Anna Pou, MD, a cancer surgeon at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans, LA, recently had charges against her dropped, reports the Associated Press. Pou was working during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and was accused of administering lethal doses of medications to four patients. She described the physical conditions of the hospital as being deplorable, saying, "The smell got to be rancid in no time."

Pou and other nurses and physicians who stayed in the hospital during the storm cared for the sickest patients and eventually were ordered by the military to do a reverse triage and transport the healthiest patients first. Though Pou has admitted many patients were sedated during the storm, she has denied ever using a "lethal cocktail" of medications to kill the four elderly patients. After she had a new job at a Baton Rouge hospital in 2006, Pou was arrested in July 2007.

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