No Indictment in Katrina Hospital Deaths

Dr. Anna Pou looks on at her home New Orleans in a Saturday, July 22, 2006 file photo. A grand jury Tuesday, July 24, 2007, declined to indict Pou, the surgeon accused of killing four seriously ill patients in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Pou and two nurses were arrested last summer after Attorney General Charles Foti's investigation concluded they gave four patients a "lethal cocktail" at Memorial Medical Center amid the chaotic conditions that followed the August 2005 storm. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File) (Alex Brandon - AP)

"It was well planned and well orchestrated," Foti said of the news media's coverage of the case.

All available information was given to the grand jury, Jordan said.

"I feel the grand jury did the right thing," he said.

Charges against the nurses, Lori Budo and Cheri Landry, were dropped after they were compelled to testify last month before the grand jury under legal guidelines that kept their testimony from being used against them.

Many people in New Orleans believed the three acted heroically under punishing conditions. Last week, a group of doctors and nurses held a rally on the anniversary of Pou's arrest, and hundreds of people turned out to show support.

"You look at a lady who's trying to help the community, and they try to indict her," said Clarence Singleton, who was selling seafood lunches Tuesday near the Louisiana Superdome.

Pou said she does not feel like a victim "because the people that know me know the type of person I am and the type of physician I am."

"I believe any patient I meet in the future and take care of will know in their heart that I always have their best interests in mind in everything I do and that I am committed to helping them."

Budo's attorney, Eddie Castaing, called the grand jury's decision proof that none of the three should ever have been arrested.

When the levees broke in New Orleans, 80 percent of the city flooded. The lower level of Memorial Medical Center was under 10 feet of water, and electricity was out across the city. Inside the hospital, the temperature topped 100 degrees.

At least 34 people died at the hospital, many from dehydration during the four-day wait for rescuers. In an interview last fall with CBS' "60 Minutes," Pou stressed: "Anytime you provide pain medicine to anybody, there is a risk. But as I said, my role is to help them through the pain."

Other doctors who were there described the situation as resembling a MASH unit during wartime rather than an urban American hospital.

"It was stifling. We were hoisting patients floor to floor on the backs of strong young men. It was as bad as you can imagine," Dr. Gregory Vorhoff, who stayed throughout the storm and eventually hitched a ride on a boat to seek help, told The Associated Press after Pou was arrested.

The four patients Pou was accused of killing ranged in age from 61 to 90. Foti said all four would have survived if they had not been given morphine and midazolam hydrochloride.

Autopsies were performed, but the results were not released because of the grand jury investigation.

Pou, whose specialty is eye, ear, nose and throat surgery, gave up her private practice after she was arrested and has been teaching at LSU medical school in Baton Rouge.

On Tuesday, she said she hoped to resume her practice as quickly as possible and urged officials to require that hospitals be evacuated for storms stronger than Category 2.

"It is my hope to return to work doing what I love to do best," she said.

Many hospitals in the region remain closed or are operating with reduced services nearly two years after Katrina. They also report difficulty in attracting and keeping medical staff.