Grand Jury Clears Katrina Doctor — She’D Been Accused of Hospital Mercy-Killings

By Mary Foster Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS – A grand jury refused Tuesday to indict a doctor accused of murdering four seriously ill hospital patients with pain- killing injections after Hurricane Katrina, closing the books on the only mercy-killing case to emerge from the storm.

Dr. Anna Pou insisted she administering powerful narcotics to the patients only to relieve their pain.

Pou (pronounced “Poe”) and two nurses were arrested last summer after Atty. Gen. Charles Foti concluded they gave “lethal cocktails” to four patients at the flooded-out, sweltering Memorial Medical Center after the August 2005 storm.

The decision was a defeat for Foti, who accused the doctor and the nurses, but it was the New Orleans district attorney who presented the case to the grand jury, asking it to bring murder and conspiracy charges.

“I feel the grand jury did the right thing,” said Dist. Atty. Eddie Jordan.

Foti said that the grand jury had erred. He released reports from four medical experts who determined the deaths were homicides.

At a news conference, Pou refused to answer questions about what happened at the hospital because of lawsuits filed by families of three patients.

“Today’s events are not a triumph but a moment of remembrance for those who lost their lives during the storm, and a tribute to all those who stayed at their posts and served people most in need,” Pou said.

She said “no health care professional should ever be falsely accused in a rush to judgment.”

Charges against the nurses, Lori Budo and Cheri Landry, were dropped after they were compelled to testify last month before the grand jury under guidelines that kept their testimony from being used against them.

Many people in New Orleans believed the three acted heroically under punishing conditions.

Last week, a group of doctors and nurses held a rally on the anniversary of Pou’s arrest, and hundreds of people turned out to show support.

In a December 2005 interview, she said: “There were some patients there who were critically ill who, regardless of the storm, had the orders of do not resuscitate. In other words, if they died, to allow them to die naturally, and to not use heroic methods to resuscitate them.”

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