charges dropped against nurses accused of murder after hurricane katrina

I really knew little about this until today. I do remember hearing about a hospital that was in the middle of the floodwaters after Hurricane Katrina. It turns out that 2,000 people used Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans for shelter during the storm. After the storm the first level of the hospital was under 10 feet of water. In the couple of days right after the storm, 18 babies and a few critical patients were evacuated and about 1,000 more people were moved by boats that showed up unexpectedly. After those rescuers left, they had no idea when the next rescue effort would reach them.
The conditions in the hospital quickly deteriorated. The temperature was over 100 degrees. The power was out. There was no water. Food was running low. People were dying. Four days after the hurricane the hospital staff was desperate. There was looting going on in the neighborhood around them.The staff feared they would be the next targets. They didn't know what to do. There was little to do for the sick patients in the conditions they were in. They felt like they had been abandoned.
That's when the thought of euthanizing the patients that would not survive was apparently talked about among the staff according to witnesses. A total of 34 patients died in that hospital in the days after Hurricane Katrina. The evacuation of the hospital was not complete until September 2. The hurricane had occurred August 29.
Two nurses were and a doctor were charged with 2nd degree murder for killing four patients with a combination of drugs. The charges were dropped in late June against the nurses.
What would you do in this situation? What would I do? I don't know. I have to say that I admire the staff who were willing to stay with the patients knowing the hurricane was coming and they remained for days afterward. I wonder what it was like for them to feel abandoned and terrified. Like any American, they believed that they would be immediately rescued. It was just common sense that the most vulnerable people, like hospital patients, would be among the first to be rescued. Then it didn't happen. They had no way of knowing what was happening. They were watching people suffer and deteriorate. I can't imagine the desperation they must have felt.
If patients were euthanized, was it murder? Should people be allowed to suffer until they die? The most immediate answer that pops into my head is no one should be euthanized. But then I wasn't in the situation. Its easy, in retrospect, to say what was the right thing to do.
This is the kind of thing that scares medical personnel to death. We are made to think that the disaster preparedness system is in great shape. We have drills that are supposed to test readiness. The fact of the matter is, as someone who works in an emergency room in a major city, I don't think we are prepared at all. The way things are right now, it would be complete chaos.
Then you wonder, after hurricane Katrina, can you depend on the government? Its obvious they had no plan for the circumstances in New Orleans. How could they have let that hospital sit there for four days?
You know the worst thing about this whole hurricane Katrina thing? No one at high levels of our government was held responsible for one of the worst human tragedies in the history of this country. Should the nurses have been charged? That's a tough one. I think that any nurse would do the best they could in a situation like this. No one would purposely take a life with little thought. Those nurses were just as much a victim as the rest of the people of New Orleans.