Perspective -
Jul. 18th, 2006 10:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kyburgA doctor and two nurses who worked through the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina were arrested overnight, accused of giving four patients stranded at their hospital lethal doses of morphine and sedatives, authorities said Tuesday.
Talk about loaded.
You stayed and did not abandon your patients. Your patients can't be moved, and with resources dwindling, can't be cared for.
They can:
- starve or die of dehydration
- die in septic shock
- suffocate when the vent's shut off when the power finally gives it up
- die of lethal injection
Only one of those is illegal. Which one is kindest?
I plan to write something in my Advanced Directive for this kind of issue. There is no other way - if it is found to be true that this was done. It. Is. Illegal. It was then, it is now - and anyone who does this kind of work knows it.
For the sake of brevity (I've gotten less than eight hours sleep in the last 72) - I'll just point out that the accused are all female; the people making the accusations - and selling the hospital this happened at to another large healthcare conglomerate - are all male.
The pity of all this is that it's likely Ann Coulter will make a joke about this and someone will find it funny. (GAH. Do me a favor - if you're going to make your argument, don't cite Coulter, cite her sources instead...if you can find them viable when you do verify them yourself....)
OH - and if you give a damn about this, follow the story and demand updates until it is resolved one way or the other. I strongly suspect this is one of those that will likely fall by the wayside in favor of other stories. You haven't heard dick about that one convalescent home that left ALL of its patients to drown, haven't you? Why is this important?
This guy says it better than I can.
This tendency leads us to judge victims unworthy of our assistance, and it is fed, not surprisingly, by the media’s presentation of the disaster and its victims. The myopic focus on the sensational – helpless old folks drowning in a rest home, children torn from their mothers’ arms by the flood, the inevitable comparison to third world nations, and the same haunted black faces in desperate need that we have seen in Darfur, while it may initially spur compassion, can, in the long run numb and distance viewers from the victims. The reality of their humanity and suffering is obscured and they are doubly victimized, becoming “refugees”, though they are as American as we, the dry-footed people.
The barrage of pictures and stories about violence, looting, rapists and snipers further erodes emotional ties to victims, raising doubts about their worthiness to receive help, and feeding the stereotype of the poor black as uneducated, ungrateful and unregenerate. Add shots of white officials and response teams, squads of soldiers and law officers holding back the criminals and trying to reason with the unreasonable, and the chasm between we, the givers and they, the takers, yawns ever wider.
Those deemed unworthy are less likely to receive either short or long-term assistance. It is hard to miss the implicit criticism in the questions we have been asking: “Why didn’t they leave when they were told? Why weren’t they insured? Why do they have to be so uncivilized?”
Really. Your only sure thing is to question. And do it from a loving perspective - protect yourself, sure. But don't go in expecting the worst. Go in expecting to find the truth.
Which, incidentally, has the nice benefit of setting you free.
Keep the perspective small and manageable - and as close to one-to-one, what you know yourself - as possible.
Talk about loaded.
You stayed and did not abandon your patients. Your patients can't be moved, and with resources dwindling, can't be cared for.
They can:
- starve or die of dehydration
- die in septic shock
- suffocate when the vent's shut off when the power finally gives it up
- die of lethal injection
Only one of those is illegal. Which one is kindest?
I plan to write something in my Advanced Directive for this kind of issue. There is no other way - if it is found to be true that this was done. It. Is. Illegal. It was then, it is now - and anyone who does this kind of work knows it.
For the sake of brevity (I've gotten less than eight hours sleep in the last 72) - I'll just point out that the accused are all female; the people making the accusations - and selling the hospital this happened at to another large healthcare conglomerate - are all male.
The pity of all this is that it's likely Ann Coulter will make a joke about this and someone will find it funny. (GAH. Do me a favor - if you're going to make your argument, don't cite Coulter, cite her sources instead...if you can find them viable when you do verify them yourself....)
OH - and if you give a damn about this, follow the story and demand updates until it is resolved one way or the other. I strongly suspect this is one of those that will likely fall by the wayside in favor of other stories. You haven't heard dick about that one convalescent home that left ALL of its patients to drown, haven't you? Why is this important?
This guy says it better than I can.
This tendency leads us to judge victims unworthy of our assistance, and it is fed, not surprisingly, by the media’s presentation of the disaster and its victims. The myopic focus on the sensational – helpless old folks drowning in a rest home, children torn from their mothers’ arms by the flood, the inevitable comparison to third world nations, and the same haunted black faces in desperate need that we have seen in Darfur, while it may initially spur compassion, can, in the long run numb and distance viewers from the victims. The reality of their humanity and suffering is obscured and they are doubly victimized, becoming “refugees”, though they are as American as we, the dry-footed people.
The barrage of pictures and stories about violence, looting, rapists and snipers further erodes emotional ties to victims, raising doubts about their worthiness to receive help, and feeding the stereotype of the poor black as uneducated, ungrateful and unregenerate. Add shots of white officials and response teams, squads of soldiers and law officers holding back the criminals and trying to reason with the unreasonable, and the chasm between we, the givers and they, the takers, yawns ever wider.
Those deemed unworthy are less likely to receive either short or long-term assistance. It is hard to miss the implicit criticism in the questions we have been asking: “Why didn’t they leave when they were told? Why weren’t they insured? Why do they have to be so uncivilized?”
Really. Your only sure thing is to question. And do it from a loving perspective - protect yourself, sure. But don't go in expecting the worst. Go in expecting to find the truth.
Which, incidentally, has the nice benefit of setting you free.
Keep the perspective small and manageable - and as close to one-to-one, what you know yourself - as possible.
