Nursing home owners face charges

The12thMan · #1 (**permalink**) 09-18-2005, 02:01 PM

Quote:

Nursing home owners face charges
Couple charged with 34 counts of negligent homicide

Tuesday, September 13, 2005; Posted: 8:52 p.m. EDT (00:52 GMT)

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (CNN) -- The owners of St. Rita's Nursing Home in St. Bernard Parish, where 34 people died as Hurricane Katrina hit, have been charged with negligent homicide, Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti Jr. said Tuesday.

"They did not die of natural causes; they drowned," Foti told reporters. "Thirty-four people drowned in a nursing home where they should have been evacuated." .....

......Jim Cobb, an attorney for the Manganos, told CNN that his clients did not abandon the patients who died. The Manganos stayed in the nursing home through the storm with their children, grandchildren, and nieces and nephews, he said.

"We feel we have criminal negligence," Foti said. "They did not follow the standards of care that a reasonable person would follow in a similar circumstance."

He said the owners had plenty of opportunity to move their charges out of the facility. The Manganos were asked if they wanted to evacuate the building and were offered buses; in addition, they had signed last April a contract with Acadian Ambulance to provide transportation in the event an evacuation was needed, Foti said, but "they were never called."

Cobb said the Manganos said they were never told about the mandatory evacuation, and the couple was concerned that had they prematurely moved their patients, many would have died........

.......Bodies found in hospital

Rescue workers have removed 45 bodies from a downtown New Orleans hospital that was surrounded by floodwaters from Katrina, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals said.

The bodies were recovered Sunday from Memorial Medical Center, spokeswoman Melissa Walker said.

Tenet Healthcare Corp., the company that owns the hospital, said in a statement that "a significant number had passed before the hurricane."

Tenet spokesman Steven Campanini wrote that the hospital was told Wednesday "that we were on our own to evacuate, [and] we brought our own helicopters to take the patients out."

He said, "Every living patient was evacuated by Friday afternoon."

The statement said that once all of the patients were evacuated, officials brought in guards to secure the hospital until the coroner could remove the bodies......

If we are to hold these people to a reasonable standard of care, shouldn't we also be prosecuting the parents of every child that died? Shouldn't we prosecute the person responsible for making the decision not to use those school buses to evacuate as many as possible? The Manganos go to jail for the rest of their lives while other people who are just as culpable, IMO, get free money and new homes. If these people go to jail, then there are quite a few government officials and others who need to go with them. Not a bad idea.

The12thMan · #2 (**permalink**) 09-18-2005, 02:03 PM

I realize we've hit on this topic before, but I can't find it. I believe it merits continuing discussion as facts come to light.

Ooops. Almost forgot.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/13/katrina.impact/

f100supersabr · #3 (**permalink**) 09-18-2005, 04:16 PM

12thman wrote

Quote:

Shouldn't we prosecute the person responsible for making the decision not to use those school buses to evacuate as many as possible?

I basically believe that anyone who is culpable should be punished at the level of their culpability up the chain of command. But be careful what you ask for. If it can be proven that a high Fema official did or failed to do something that caused deaths how far up the chain of command do we go with our punishment ? Does BROWN GO TO PRISON ?Does Chortoff do to prison ? how ABOUT THE PRESIDENT ?

You mention the now famous bus story. I heard Shawn VANNITY and Bill O'RILEY claimed that there over 2000 school buses in NO that were not used. Well it was found out that NO only had about 370 buses that they owned. 76Y buses were in for repair at the time of the storm.

There are other questions about the bus story. Officials noted that they did not have enough drivers for the school bus drivers.

I think that we need much more information about the bus story from credible independent sources ( that does not include Vannity or O'Reilly) before we sentence people to death for failures.

You notice that have not called for anyone to be punished yet !!!

JP5 · #4 (**permalink**) 09-18-2005, 06:15 PM

The exact number of buses is not what is important. Even 200 buses could have evacuated lot of people. One of the evacuees said in an ABC interview that there were school buses and Greyhound buses. And there was an Amtrak train that wanted to take some people out....but were turned down.

The12thMan · #5 (**permalink**) 09-18-2005, 07:17 PM

I heard that there were about 250 running school buses. Each bus has 24 seats capable of carrying 2 big butts or three small/medium sized butts. That's 48-72 passengers not counting babes in arms. Multiply by 250 and you get 12,000-18,000 per load.

Now, considering that the evacuation plan was not put into use, we have to imagine how many people might have been saved if it had been. That's pretty much my point. At first, I thought that they had actually abandoned these poor elderly victims. But, that's not true. They stayed, and they stayed with their family. How can we hold these two people accountable for underestimating a storm that was so obviously underestimated by government officials? Mayfield specifically called Blanco and Nagin in an effort to convey the seriousness of the storm. I doubt if he called the Manganos.

f100supersabr · #6 (**permalink**) 09-18-2005, 07:38 PM

the 12th said

Quote:

I heard that there were about 250 running school buses. Each bus has 24 seats capable of carrying 2 big butts or three small/medium sized butts. That's 48-72 passengers not counting babes in arms. Multiply by 250 and you get 12,000-18,000 per load.

I agree that even one of those 'un-used' buses could have saved people.
What we do not know is if there were any 'drivers' available to drive them. I do not mean necessarily a professional driver but 'volunteers' may have been appointed if any were available. I recall appointing 'volunteers' in the AirForce and I was 'volunteered ' by my wing commander at times.

I challenged the 2000 figure because I believe it was part of the blame game being conducted by the Vannity crowd.

kaladrew · #7 (**permalink**) 09-19-2005, 07:49 AM

well 12thman, you forgot that they could sue the gays and the lesbians, Planned Parenthood and NARAL for God's vengence.

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