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Lost in the fog of dementia, Ireatha Watson, 89, seemed unaware of the mounting tension as Hurricane Katrina roared toward New Orleans. On the Saturday before the storm struck, her daughter, Paulette Watson Harris, found her peacefully watching TV in her room at Memorial Medical Center. Harris lingered as long as she could--combing her mother's hair, washing her face, kissing her on the forehead. "You be good. Don't cut up," she gently admonished her mother, who had always been a spitfire, before leaving to seek shelter in Baton Rouge. It would be the last time she saw her. A month after Katrina, the coroner's office notified Harris that it had Watson's remains. Now Harris has learned even more dreadful news: that her mother may have been murdered.
Last week Louisiana's attorney general accused Dr. Anna Pou and two nurses--Lori Budo and Cheri Landry--of killing Watson and three other patients at Memorial with lethal injections. The three women were arrested--though not yet charged--and quickly released. If true, the crime would constitute one of the more ghastly chapters in a saga already abounding with tragedy. In Katrina's wake, conditions at Memorial quickly deteriorated; floodwaters rose, the power died and the hospital sweltered. According to witness testimony in a state affidavit, Pou told staffers that "a decision had been made to administer lethal doses" to Watson and other patients in an acute-care unit. Then, witnesses claim, she and the nurses filled syringes and visited each patient's room. According to the affidavit, autopsy tests showed that all four patients tested positive for morphine and Versed, a sedative. "This is not euthanasia," Attorney General Charles Foti declared last week. "This is plain and simple homicide."
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ttorneys for the defendants vehemently deny that. Pou will "contest the charges vigorously if they become formal," says her attorney. Last week Pou's colleagues and loved ones rushed to her defense. And medical professionals challenged Foti's depiction of a cut-and-dried case. In such a harrowing setting, it's conceivable that Pou ordered such injections to relieve pain or anxiety, says Dr. Dennis Patin, a pain-management expert at the University of Miami.
It's now up to the Orleans Parish district attorney to decide whether to charge Pou and the nurses with second-degree murder, as Foti recommends, or something else. Meanwhile, the attorney general is continuing his investigation--which could lead to more arrests--into other deaths at Memorial, where 45 bodies were found after Katrina. Numerous civil lawsuits have also been filed against the hospital by relatives of the deceased. In the next few weeks, Harris will be adding hers to the list, according to her attorney. Her mother "was not standing at death's door knocking that day," she says. Unfortunately, she may never know just what pushed her mother through that door that fateful day.
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