Tuesday, July 18, 2006

A great moment in bad timing

Today, the locally based Ochsner hospital/clinic organization announced that it is purchasing three hospitals from the Tenet Corp., including Memorial Medical Center in Uptown N.O. Ochsner has a good reputation locally, and I use their services myself. Anyhow, in about an hour, the Louisiana A.G. is holding a news conference regarding a doctor and two nurses who are charged with murder for euthanizing patients at Memorial in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Ethical and criminal issues aside, that's not the kind of public relations issue I'd want to deal with regarding a new acquisition.

2 comments:

Luke Sonnier said...

Ooh. I read the article on that. I can't say what I would have done in their shoes, but I'd like to think I wouldn't have killed anyone. That is going to be an interesting trial.

Randy said...

This is going to be a very hard case for the DA to make, unless the drug levels in the tissue samples were so high as to remove any reasonable doubt as to the defendants' intentions. Even then, a jury might be reluctant to convict of murder, under the circumstances. A lesser form of homicide, maybe. It will be interesting to see how it unfolds.