Summary Of Five Days Of Memorial By Sheri Fink

In many hospital cases a group of people in charge are always trying to make the best decisions for patients. At times decisions are usually the hardest to comprehend when dealing with life or death circumstances. In the book Five Days of Memorial by Sheri Fink, hurricane Katrina hit, doctors and nurses made a triage decision to place people into three different categories depending on their conditions. In category three, patients remaining were DNR ( Do Not Resuscitate) patients, who aren't to be revived, which were the last patients to leave Memorial Hospital. Dr Ewing Cook, a chief medical officer, states in the book of Five Days At Memorial , that they “only had two choices:quicken their deaths or abandon them.” (Fink 158). Time was

They were hit with a category five Hurricane which left New Orleans in a total disaster. No electricity, shelter or water to survive in. Memorial hospital was flooded because the levee broke, which prevented water from overflowing from the river to ground level. At this point Physicians at Memorial having to make decisions based on the best knowledge for the comfort of their patients. Patients were dying in Memorial because of an environment unbearable to survive in. Euthanasia meaning painless killing for patients who are suffering from pain. Physician caring for their patients till their last breath, was the role they played. Not having much transportation to evacuate patients and running out of time made them come to a decision it was better to euthanize these remaining DNR patients

A triage means “ to assort...sorted according to their injuries and physical condition, with the aim of prioritizing those who should be treated first” ( Andersson et al.136). Circumstances at Memorial Hospital were terrible, “ the workload was high and sometimes, practical decisions must be made” (Andersson et al.140). The workload at Memorial was high because they lacked many resources they were relying on to keep patients alive and comfortable. For example, they had no electricity. Having no electricity lead to the elevators not working, and the staff were not able to bring patients up to the helipad for rescue. A patient named Burgess was having trouble surviving, as she was breathing irregularly, after “ her electronic monitors had stopped working when the emergency power failed in their section of the hospital.”(Fink 156). As a result, Cook could no longer take care of her nor keep her alive due to the lack of electricity. However he knew the size of her weight made it impossible to bring her down six flights of stairs where there were more resources. In addition the air condition was not working which made it hard for everyone to seek relief in high temperatures. In the end Burgess died due to Cook taking her out of