Memorial Medical Center and Hurricane Katrina

Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans, Louisiana was heavily damaged when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005. In the aftermath of the storm, while the building had no electricity and went through catastrophic flooding after the levees failed, Dr. Anna Pou, along with other doctors and nurses, attempted to continue caring for patients. On Wednesday, August 31, United States Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt reassured the public that 2,500 patients would be evacuated from hospitals in Orleans Parish, although it wasn't clear at first where they would be moved to.

On September 11, 45 bodies were recovered from Memorial Medical Center, about five of whom had died before the disaster (originally thought to be eleven). Out of an estimated 215 bodies found in nursing homes and hospitals in New Orleans, Memorial had the largest number.

In July 2006, a Louisiana judge found probable cause to order the arrest of Pou and two nurses for second degree murder in the deaths of several of the patients, following a nearly year-long investigation by the office of Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti. However, a year later a grand jury in Orleans Parish refused to indict Pou on any of the counts. Eventually, the charges were expunged and the State of Louisiana paid Pou's legal fees.

Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell, Foti's successor, said, "This is a prosecution that should never have been brought" forward. In 2008, Caldwell testified before the Louisiana Supreme Court in support of the position taken by lawyers for Pou and other doctors and nurses from Memorial, who were fighting to keep the state's investigative records in the case sealed from public view. He said, "the case against Dr. Pou is probably over," but that new information could lead to a renewed investigation, so the files should remain secret. The following year, Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro testified in the same case that "human beings were killed as a result of actions by doctors" at Memorial after Hurricane Katrina. However, he explained that he did not plan to prosecute anyone. "Whether or not there was a homicide and whether or not there is a case that can be brought are different matters." Provided by Wikipedia