What really happened at Memorial after Katrina?
In a story that is being co-published by The New York Times Magazine and ProPublica, Sheri Fink, M.D., painstakingly reconstructed the hectic, troubling events that transpired at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans in the days after Hurricane Katrina swept through the city. In that time, 45 patients died at the center – more than at any comparable hospital in the area – and, although a grand jury did not issue any indictments in relation to the deaths, there are indications that some of the deceased patients may have been euthanized.
Fink “obtained previously unavailable records and interviewed dozens of people who were involved in the events at Memorial and the investigation that followed.” She writes that more medical professionals and more patients were involved than previously thought and that “Several were almost certainly not near death when they were injected, according to medical professionals who treated them at Memorial and an internist’s review of their charts and autopsies that was commissioned by investigators but never made public.”
In addition to the doctors, nurses and patients involved in the controversial deaths, Fink also tells the story of the coroner and investigators charged with untangling the post-Katrina events at Memorial Medical Center and how they struggled to administer justice while taking into account the extraordinary circumstances that followed the hurricane.
The extensive package includes a video interview with Fink about how her background as a physician, humanitarian aid workers and previous reporting on medical care in wartime conditions helped her report this story.
Comments
2 Comments on What really happened at Memorial after Katrina?
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AHCJ member Fink wins investigative Pulitzer : Covering Health on
Mon, 12th Apr 2010 3:28 pm
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Fink wins Dart award for Memorial story : Covering Health on
Thu, 22nd Apr 2010 9:02 am
[...] and AHCJ member Sheri Fink, M.D., won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting for her recounting of “the urgent life-and-death decisions made by one hospital’s exhausted doctors when they [...]
[...] member Sheri Fink’s 13,000-word piece on the difficult choices made at Memorial Hospital in the wake of Hurricane Katrina continues its run this awards season, adding the 2010 Dart Award for Excellence in Coverage of [...]
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