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Panel OKs reviews of doctor acts in disasters
BATON ROUGE -- Legislation designed to help prosecutors determine whether to file charges against doctors, nurses or other health care professionals for their actions during or immediately after disasters sped out of a Senate committee Tuesday, leaving it one step short of going to Gov. Bobby Jindal's desk.
The Judiciary A Committee unanimously approved House Bill 1379 by House Speaker Jim Tucker, R-Algiers, sending it to the full Senate, where it is expected to be approved.
The bill establishes a three-member Emergency-Disaster Medicine Review Panel to examine disaster-related decisions by health-care personnel. A district attorney or state attorney general could choose to ask the board for an evaluation of a medical professional's conduct in a case before launching a prosecution. The findings of the panel would be advisory and not binding, Tucker said.
The review panel would be made up of the parish coroner where the medical services were rendered, a member of the state professional society that oversees the conduct of the medical professional and an "expert in disaster medicine" named by the governor.
The bill is the result of a case involving Dr. Anna Pou and two nurses. Former Attorney General Charles Foti had the three arrested in 2006 on murder charges for allegedly administering lethal doses of drugs to patients left ill and sweltering in Memorial Medical Center in the days after Hurricane Katrina struck. Charges were never filed against the three.
Prosecutors who use the panel to determine whether a criminal charge is warranted must refer their investigative files to the committee in confidence for its review, and the panel's response to the prosecutor would also be confidential.
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Ed Anderson can be reached at eanderson@timespicayune.com or (225) 342-5810.
