Cooley v. Acadian Ambulance
The development of legislation is not the end of policy issue, usually it’s only the beginning. As these laws are implemented, there are always situations where the law or a specific policy may run into a situation where it is challenged by the public. This is true even when it comes to legislation that is meant to mitigate the worst case scenario. In this post I will be discussing a case that ended in personal tragedy for one family.
Background
Hurricane Katrina was the source of misery for a large portion of the New Orleans area. The storm devastated the area and left many dead and many more stranded without food or water. In the aftermath, many stories of the city’s most vulnerable, the elderly and infirm, started to trickle in. Russel Embry was confined to bead as a result of brain damage, as a result his care giver and mother Dorothy Hingle,83, had enrolled in an evacuation program established by the St. Bernard Parish, that contracted the Acadian Ambulance to evacuate individuals registered as special needs (Cooley v. Acadian, 2011). Although Mr. Embry had been successfully evacuated on other occasion through this program. Unfortunately, during the evacuation efforts
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These public-private partnerships are supposed to ease the strains on emergency services while taking advantage of the expertise and resources of private organizations (Busch, & Givens, 2013, p. 7). Utilizing the infrastructure of a private ambulance company like Acadian Ambulance falls neatly into this description. In the case of Cooley v. Acadian Ambulance, the courts ruled that the plaintiffs had failed to prove that Acadian Ambulance had been negligent in execution of their responsibilities, and recognized the challenging situation that Katrina presented. Although this may not have answered questions of reasonable risk, hopefully it began a
In 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast of the United States of America. This tropical storm rendered much of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama a flooded wasteland; in particular, Memorial Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana was sequestered by the floods, leaving hundreds of patients, staff, and visitors without vital resources. Electricity was cut off, and the internal temperatures reached over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, as reported by journalist Sheri Fink (2009). Staff attempted to evacuate the hospital, carrying patients one-by-one down many flights of stairs. Several patients died during this evacuation. In the wake of the flood, it was discovered that 45 patients of Memorial Hospital had perished, and that 23 of these deaths were attributed to a lethal dose of Versed or morphine. Dr Anna Pou, a surgeon on duty during the disaster, was accused of euthanizing these patients during
Hurricane Katrina was a devastating storm that destroyed the lives of many New Orleanians. A storm that caused the people to be in a bad predicament. In the reading, “The Deadly Choices at Memorial” by Sheri Fink, is a story about events that are shadowed and never acknowledged until introduced. In other words, many of the stories that followed the storm were about the houses that were destroyed, the complex evacuation process, animals that were lost, or even the fridges that were destroyed but uplifting notes were left on it, but never the complicity of the hospitals and hospital staff that monitored the injured people.The story describes the scenery of the hospital. Many of the workers are tired and overworked due to power shortages and
In the late summer of 2005, a terrible tragedy occurred that changed the lives of many in the south-east region of the United States. A Category 3, named storm, named Hurricane Katrina, hit the Gulf Coast on the 29th of August and led to the death of 1,836 and millions of dollars’ worth of damage (Waple 2005). The majority of the damage occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana. Waple writes in her article that winds “gusted over 100 mph in New Orleans, just west of the eye” (Waple 2005). Not only was the majority of the damage due to the direct catastrophes of the storm but also city’s levees could no longer hold thus breaking and releasing great masses of water. Approximately, 80% of the city was submerged at sea level. Despite the vast amount of damage and danger all throughout the city, officials claimed that there was work being done to restore the city of New Orleans as a whole but many parts, and even the people, of the city were overlooked while areas of the city with higher economic value, and more tourist traffic, were prioritized along with those individuals.
Even though it is the responsibility of the federal and state governments to aid citizens during times of disaster, the people devastated by Hurricane Katrina were not effectively facilitated as according to their rights as citizens of the United States. The government’s failures to deliver assistance to citizens stem from inadequate protection systems in place before the storm even struck. The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security were the two largest incumbents in the wake of the storm. The failure of these agencies rests on the shoulders of those chosen to head the agency. These directors, appointed by then president George W. Bush, were not capable of leading large government agencies through a crisis, let alone a disaster the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina. Along with the federal government, the state of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans did not do enough to lesseb the damage caused by the storm, and forced thousands of poorer citizens to remain in cramped and unsanitary conditions for extended periods of time. The culmination of federal, state, and local government’s failures in suppressing and repairing the damage of Hurricane Katrina to a level acceptable for citizens of the United States is a denial of the rights citizens of the United States hold.
The Coast Guard, for instance, rescued some 34,000 people in New Orleans alone, and many ordinary citizens commandeered boats, offered food and shelter, and did whatever else they could to help their neighbors. Yet the government–particularly the federal government–seemed unprepared for the disaster. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) took days to establish operations in New Orleans, and even then did not seem to have a sound plan of action. Officials, even including President George W. Bush, seemed unaware of just how bad things were in New Orleans and elsewhere: how many people were stranded or missing; how many homes and businesses had been damaged; how much food, water and aid was needed. Katrina had left in her wake what one reporter called a “total disaster zone” where people were “getting absolutely
Wake County EMS responds to almost 90,000 requests for service annually and serves almost 1 million people, which places the WCEMS system in the top fifty EMS systems in the country based on call volume and size of population served. ("Wake county department," 2012) In response to ever-increasing call volume, a decrease in primary care, and the universal changes in healthcare, which have resulted in more people using EMS and the local emergency room for primary care and non-life threatening events, the EMS Department elected to change their service structure. The department would move away from the traditional EMS mantra of “you call we haul” and having a system being designed around reactive responses to healthcare issues in the community to an evidenced based incident prevention structure. No longer, would it be considered prudent or correct to just continue to add transport resources to address the increasing call volume and continue to place the actual burden of care on the local hospitals, it would become the burden of the EMS system to provide alternatives to properly address the actual healthcare needs of those who called 911. Wake County EMS had already utilized evidenced based ...
The Law is always changing and it reflects today’s society. However, the Law is not perfect because it is made by humans. The Law does not always coincide with Justice and Morality, for example, Carroll has lawfully been acquitted, but justice hasn’t been served, because everyone knows that he has been acquitted on a technicality. Also, abortion is legal, but many people feel that it is immoral. Because of laws in need of repealing and the inconsistencies between Law, Justice and Morality, it is not surprising that the Law can often be seen as an ‘ass’.
This essay will first address the statute used and interpretation of the threshold test by the courts, and then focus on cases involving vulnerable children to assess whether the statute in The Children Act 1989 is sufficient in protecting these children from harm. I will look at the argument in favour of the current approach taken by the courts, and the counter-argument in favour of changing the current approach. The arguments are delicately balanced and the law is always developing, so it will be interesting to see how the Supreme Court resolves this issue in future.
Stephens, N. M., Hamedani, M. G., Markus, H. R., Bergsieker, H. B., & Eloul, L. (2009). Why did they “choose” to stay? Perspectives of Hurricane Katrina observers and survivors. Psychological Science, 20(7), 878-886.
The category 3 storm changed the lives of the residence who lived there forever. The storm in combination with the fault of the man-made flood protection walls (levee’s) resulted in the death of at least 1,300 people (1). With nearly half the victims over the age of 74, deaths were caused by; drowning, injury/ trauma and heart conditions (2). Hurricane Katrina was one of the most costliest storms to land on American soil, costing around US$135 billion in damages (3). Although the number of deaths caused by Hurricane Katrina are not as high as other natural disasters, Katrina displaced a massive amount of people from their homes, around 85% of the population were displaced directly after the storm hit (6). Being one of the most devastating natural disasters to hit the United States, Hurricane Katrina impacted not only the residence of New Orleans by also many of the surrounding
...e governments discriminated against poor African Americans residents, but it is only natural that after receiving little aid and having no place to go, those citizens would not return to the Crescent City. The immense displacement caused by the most expensive natural disaster in United States history proved that the City of New Orleans, and the United States as a whole, was not prepared for a natural disaster of that magnitude. It also showed the challenges urban planners face in times of crisis and the weaknesses they need to overcome in order to avoid another decade of reconstruction efforts after tragedy strikes. Despite the fact that nine years post-Katrina many people have still not returned to the city, New Orleans, with every flaw it has, is still an encouraging example proving that with enough effort, battered places can rebuild and begin to prosper again.
The protection of life has been a foundation for many laws and social mores and legalizing euthanasia cheapens that protection. A recent challenge to this idea came in a London lawsuit when two severely disabled men claimed their protected human rights were violated because they could not choose how and when to die. The British Court ruled that while the current laws did not support the rights the men claimed, “the ban on euthanasia is justified” (Cheng 1). In this lawsuit, the right to live won above the so-called right to die because a law that was enacted by the people of Britain was protected. Had the case won, the laws that British voters approved to protect life, would have been cast away. Similarly in the United States, many bills to promote euthanasia have died once voters were informed of the debate. Initiative 119, which would have legalized euthanasia in Washington in 1991, at first show...
Horkan, Thomas. "Legislation That Complicates Dying." Eds. Gary McCuen and Therese Boucher. Hudson: Gary McCuen Publications, 1985. 69-72.
Executive summary: the information presented below is the case study for The American Red Cross association. The organisation operates on its own and is supported by donations from people. Its main objective is to provide alleviation to those suffering from natural disasters such as earthquakes, flood, tsunami and other natural calamities. The organisation on an average, responds to about 70,000 disasters in one year, across the globe. There was massive criticism for the association for the route they took to care of the attacks on September 11, 2001 including the Hurricane in 2005. The allegations were ineffective and bad management, be that as it may, and the organisation has additionally tended to claims
Just like any other policy the top down approach has been criticize. One of the criticisms for the top down approach “fails to consider the significance of actions taken earlier in the policy-making process” (Matland). Matland is discussing the early stages of the top down approach where the legal lang...