More Questions To Ask
(8/02 /2007) - Times-Picayune
Re: "Wanting answers doesn't merit an apology," Other Opinions, July 31.
I would like to comment on Jarvis DeBerry's column of Tuesday and the events at Memorial Hospital during and after Hurricane Katrina.
While Mr. DeBerry is right to expect answers to why people died at the hospital and others in New Orleans, he needs to begin by asking the right questions. Let me suggest a few that Attorney General Charles Foti and other accusers of the doctor and nurses have so far failed to either ask or publicly answer: Why did the state of Louisiana and city of New Orleans have no responsible plan to evacuate patients in need?
Why did it take the federal government so long to arrive with adequate resources and evacuation support?
Why did Tenet Corp. not have and implement its own plan for moving patients out of harm's way before the storm came ashore?
And why did Lifecare Corp., operators of the unit within Memorial where so many patients died, move those poor people to Memorial from their Chalmette facility instead of incurring the extra cost to move them out of the area altogether?
These are the real questions that need to be answered instead of continuing a costly and fruitless witch hunt in an attempt to shift the blame for needless deaths.
Donna Stuart,
New Orleans
