Katrina Hospital Investigation Follow-Up

ProPublica Report
www.propublica.org
September 4, 2009

Slate Follows-up on Our Katrina Hospital Investigation —And We Follow-up Too By Sheri Fink

Slate's Josh Levin has a thoughtful story today following up on our exploration of post-Katrina deaths at New Orleans' Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans. Our story, co-published with the New York Times Magazine, revealed that at least 17 patients at the hospital died in the final hours of patient evacuation after all were injected with morphine and/or the sedative midazolam. Levin points many of those who died were patients of a separate long term acute care hospital, LifeCare Hospitals of New Orleans, that leased the 7th floor of Memorial. He argues that "this separation of authority and personnel caused chaos in the days after Katrina and probably contributed to the death toll at the hospital." We thought we would answer a couple of questions Levin raised about the relationship between the two hospitals and the physicians present at the facilities. http://propublica.lyris.net/t/10068/23321/760/0/

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