Exploring Medical Ethics in Healthcare
The Day of Hurricane Katrina and the Immediate Aftermath
Sep 29, 2024
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The second portion of the book will mainly focus on what is happening during the storm, and directly what is happening after the storm. Before diving into the content, I would like to note that this book has been an incredibly interesting and somber read to be engaging with while Hurricane Helene is actively making its way throughout the southeastern coast of the United States. I’ve noticed so many parallels throughout the two situations, and my heart goes out to those who have family who passed in the storm, and those who have lost homes and business to the destruction. (To read more about Hurricane Helene, visit https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/29/us/helene-destruction-florida-north-carolina.html for active updates). This is the first hurricane in
the United States that has rivaled the destruction from Hurricane Katrina.
That being said, it is important to continue to analyze the content, so we will start off the summary again from the middle of chapter three. Multiple pages are used to give a descriptive backstory of Dr. Anna Pou (pictured below), one of the key players in the book. She grew up in New Orleans and decided to become a doctor when she had saved a drowning man at a local party. By the end of her training, she was an ENT surgeon who specialized in head and neck cancers. She was described to be incredibly passionate about her career, marrying another healthcare professional and never having children. She was on call when Katrina hit, and without a large family to depend on her, she decided that the best course of action was to stay throughout the storm.
Katrina hit the hospital at around two in the morning on Monday, August 29th. Windows began to crack and break at four am. “At 4:55 a.m., the supply of city power to the hospital failed,” (Fink, 56). Floodwaters began to rise, and people soon began to worry that nothing on the first floor was safe anymore. Many of the staff had brought their animals to the hospital, storing them on the first floor dubbed the “Noah’s ark of pets.” Naturally, there was a panicked surge of nurses and doctors rescuing them and carrying them up to floors above. In the light of Monday morning, it became increasingly clear that the hospital only had about a day’s worth of most medicines available. The Saturday before then, the head pharmacist had requested an emergency storage of medicine, but the pharmaceutical company's workers had already left town. Memorial was forced to make due with the minimal supplies that they had on hand. The good news was Katrina had lost a lot of steam since coming onto land. Monday’s late morning and afternoon had floodwaters stabilizing at about three feet, and they began to recede by mid afternoon. Many assumed that they had dodged a bullet, with the Hurricane only hitting some parts of New Orleans with category one or two level winds, not the level five winds that had been predicted. The disaster seemed minimal, until Tuesday hit.
Hospital Manager Susan Mulderick had been designated as the incident commander for Katrina, and she had some unfortunate news to share with the rest of the team. In the aftermath of the storm, she had received word that looters were ravaging the city. She also had to report that in some areas, water was sitting stagnant in the streets. They found out that one of the canals right outside the city had been breached, which meant a wicked amount of water was actively making its way to the hospital. “Some doctors would later say the sight of the water advancing toward the hospital, pushing the hurricane debris ahead of it, was like something out of a movie: a glob of murderous slime from a ‘60s sci-fi thriller,” (Fink, 69). They had not dodged a bullet after all.
With running out of medication, air conditioning not being supported on the backup generator, and a terrifying sludge of water approaching the campus, things were not looking good for the refugees at Memorial. Almost 200 Memorial patients needed to be evacuated, with no way out. The parent company of the hospital had no contracts with medical transport companies. (See specifically the section titled Hurricane Katrina: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenet_Healthcare). It did not have an incident command system. Some people at headquarters had lined up medicine and blood for Memorial, but still had no clue how to actually deliver it to the hospital. The crisis was so bad that Dr. Cook, one of the physicians on call for the storm, made the decision that “all but the most essential treatments and care should be discontinued,” (Fink, 80). Ultimately, the workers discovered that it wasn’t the actual hurricane that would cause most of the damage that would be left by Katrina, it would be a multitude of failures after the storm. A failure of the drainage systems and levees protecting the city, a failure of law enforcement to keep New Orleans safe, and finally, a failure of Tenet healthcare (the parent company of Memorial), to provide adequate supplies, advice, or relief for the staff at Memorial, or any of their other hurricane impacted hospitals.
Pictures courtesy of:
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-deadly-choices-at-memorial-826
https://www.britannica.com/event/Hurricane-Katrina
