Bush Visits New Orleans and Defends the Indefensible

45 Bodies Found In La. Hospital
Bush Visits New Orleans and Defends Federal Response; FEMA Chief Quits

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 12 -- The bodies of 45 patients left in a hasty evacuation were recovered from a New Orleans hospital, officials said Monday, as the city braced for the scenes left by the receding waters.....

Officials said the bodies found Sunday in the Memorial Medical Center were left there after a frantic evacuation, days after the storm passed and floodwaters began to rise. An official of the hospital owners said the patients died before the evacuation and their bodies were left in the facility.

But the discovery was certain to raise new questions about why so many city hospitals were not evacuated before the storm. Two medical professionals inside the Memorial Medical Center said conditions began to turn desperate shortly after the floodwaters cut off roads. The darkened corridors were jammed with families. Drinking water grew scarce. Medical supplies exhausted quickly; even IVs were being rationed, they said.

"Things looked like they were going downhill quickly," said Scot Sonnier, an oncologist there. He left before the evacuation, thinking other doctors were handling it, he said.....

....A spokesman for Tenent Healthcare Corp., which owns the hospital, told the AP that some of the people found Sunday had died before the storm, and the others died before the evacuation, which other officials said was done by boats.....

Bob Johannesen, a spokesman for the state Department of Health and Hospitals, said the bodies of 45 patients were recovered from the hospital Sunday, although Dave Goodson, an assistant administrator, said the toll was 57, according to the AP.

This hospital, Memorial Hospital, is run by Tenet Healthcare Corp. On September 3rd, almost a week after the storm, CNN reported the following:

....said Steve Campanini, spokesman for Tenet HealthCare, which operates it. Nurses have been flown in from other Tenet hospitals, and Tenet has launched its own private rescue flights, he said, aided by Coast Guard helicopters.

Five of Tenet's other hospitals have been evacuated, except for a doctor at Lindy Boggs Medical Center in New Orleans, who refuses to leave because staffers' pets are there, Campanini said.

On Thursday September 1, Tenet issued the following press release about the situation in their hurricane-affected hospitals:

At 317-bed Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans, private helicopters hired by Tenet, working in collaboration with federal agencies, have airlifted several dozen patients, while U.S. Coast Guard representatives ferried family members and others who took shelter in the hospital by boat to safety. More than 40 patients along with about 200 staff and others are still to be evacuated. The hospital has been without electricity, air-conditioning and water since Monday. At one point, more than 2,000 persons including 150 patients were stranded in the hospital.

On Tuesday August 30th the Dallas Business Journal reported:

The evacuations of 317-bed Memorial Medical Center and 187-bed Lindy Boggs Medical Center in New Orleans and 189-bed Gulf Coast Medical Center in Biloxi, Miss., were expected to be completed by the end of today because of rising water in the facilities.

9:40 a.m. update:

The New York Times has a better story on what really happened to the hospital over the course of the disastrous post-hurricane days:

Agonizing Days of Heat and Death in a Medical Island