NEW ORLEANS, July 21 (UPI) -- Some doctors in New Orleans have reacted with outrage to the arrests of a physician and two nurses accused of killing patients during Hurricane Katrina.
The doctors have said Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti Jr. acted rashly when he ordered the arrests of Dr. Anna Pou, Lori Budo, and Cheri Landry on charges of second-degree murder for allegedly injecting patients with a lethal dose drugs at Memorial Medical Center on Sept. 1, The Los Angeles Times reported Friday.
The three are accused of killing four patients three days after the hurricane hit and left the hospital without power or water and little chance of evacuating the ill.
"This is vilifying the heroes," Dr. Daniel Nuss, Pou's supervisor at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, told the Times. "I think it's presumptuous for the attorney general or anyone else to try to assign blame for what happened under such desperate circumstances."
Nuss said all three of the accused had solid professional records and he was confident they would be cleared of any wrongdoing.
An unnamed witness has signed an affidavit claiming that Pou had said "lethal" doses of pain medication would be given to some patients, the Times reported.
