Deadly Choices At Memorial Summary

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

a lack of survival resources. Many of the patients are slowly losing their lives just because the power is a major resource in hospitals. As the days of the storm continue, resources are shorting and the hospital staff are beginning to assist in the rescue process. Because the power is out, it limits the transportation of handicapped patients. The doctors and nurses work together to try and complete each obstacle that are at hand. Therefore, doctors chose to label and separate patients by their level of sickness. Each person was placed on a floor or in a section with a number attacked to them. The numbers represented the level of complexity of their condition. The people labeled with the lowest number are able to be rescued first and the ones with the highest number are rescued dependent on their condition. Ewing Cook is a doctor who assisted in the care of patients during the time of evacuation. Cook believed that if a patient is down to their last breaths, they should be distributed a higher dosage of morphine, a drug that slows down breathing and speeds up death. He saw this as “putting the patient out of their misery” which means the patients are not feeling pain as they are dying but are dying painless. Most of the staff were in accord with Cook’s decision but few were against it. The doctors were killing their patients to prevent overworking themselves, and prevent the patients from sever pain.
A modern christian would argue against the doctor’s decision to speed up death with morphine because in either case, the doctors as a result, are committing murder. Christians live by divine rules called the commandments that God gave to Moses. One of the commandment states “Thou shalt not kill” which is interpreted that no man shall kill another. Christians would protest that the doctors are reducing a life that has potential of survival. Christians would also agree that not all doctor’s diagnosis are accurate. In other words, when a doctor give an individual a time limit in which he or she might die, it is possible to outlive that limit. Lastly, christians would argue that it is a doctor’s moral responsibility to save a life, due to the hippocratic oath that was taken in medical school. So, how is it possible for a doctor to speed up death when he or she is supposed to be preventing death?
A person who agrees with the doctor’s decision would agree that there is limited space and limited timing. The doctors saved way more patients than they killed. The doctors also put their lives at risk trying to assure that each patient receive a valuable amount of time from both doctors and nurses. The simple fact that the hospital staff has to witness a patient constantly suffering is unbearable to see. It is human nature to find the best comfort for a patient. Normally, the doctor has the patient’s best interest at heart, that being said, morphine calms the body and releases the soul as breathing comes to an end. The environment has shifted from order to disorder therefore the doctors has to create a system that saves the majority and peacefully end the life of the minority. For example, the patient that was overweight would have suffered in pain and eventually died due to the fact that the staff has no energy to carry him down the stairs. Doctors did not want to wait until death consumed the patient naturally because then the environment would have increased to more chaos, therefore, doctors took action on the best possible decision. In conclusion, a person who agrees with the doctor’s decision would agree that the doctors and nurses put in hard work and long thoughtful hours to complete the complex task that was more dangerous than the storm itself.
The response is sufficient.

During the time of chaos and confusion, doctors are expected to find the best solution for the patients. As a consequence, the staff chooses to kill the patients “calmly” to reduced the factors that puts a strain on themselves and on the patients. Doctor Cook never once said that they chose the very last option possible, because if that was the case, the doctors would have made a call for additional volunteer recusers until conformation that no rescuers and no outside assistants were left to assure that the patients in the category five condition have a fair chance of survival. Often times, a hospital can testify that most patients have had harsher conditions that put them at near death, but after care and time, those patients have had speedy recoveries and went on to live normal lives. The doctors were in observation that the patients were suffering. Pou agreed that she administered the drugs to prevent another terrible day for the patients. Cook agreed that the drugs killed the patients by stopping their respiration system. They assumed that the patients were going to a better place. A modern christian would believe that the doctors did not take in consideration the state of the soul. Meaning, the person may not have been in a state where they went to heaven, therefore the doctors sent them to a place of deeper misery. The doctors handled the situation in the interest of the staff but not in the best interest of the patients or the patients

families.