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Abstract: During Hurricane Katrina, thousands of healthcare workers volunteered to provide essential healthcare and public health services, despite questions of who was in charge, who was authorized to practice, what standards of care applied, and who was responsible if and when patients were injured or killed. In July 2006, Dr. Anna M. Pou and two nurses at a New Orleans hospital were accused of second-degree murder in the deaths of four patients. The healthcare workers allegedly intentionally injected the patients with a deadly concoction to cause their death. In non-emergency settings, legal and ethical principles consistently reject any intentional act on the part of a healthcare worker that is primarily intended to terminate a patient’s life. Federal, state and local laws may protect volunteer healthcare workers from civil liability for harms that befall patients during emergencies, but criminal acts are categorically exempted from these protections. This article looks at the Pou case and considers whether these principles of law and ethics should be applied any differently during emergencies when difficult choices of life and death must be made.
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