Shari Fink tells the story of the choices made by the hospital in a balanced fashion. It is clear that Fink does not agree completely with the choices Anna Pou and Dr. Ewing Cook made in deciding who to save and who to let die. She knew that the reader would be disgusted with the circumstances of the situation and the decisions that were made. Fink strategically includes commentary from families who loved ones were declared least likely to survive. She shows the reader the stress the hospital staff is experiencing and the reasoning for their decision making. Fink’s descriptive ability further makes the anxiety and mass death seem like the walking dead without the zombies. Fink is able to win the reader’s heart and ethical mind into thinking how can we better handle disaster situations.
Fink’s bias is fully spelled out in the eighth paragraph. The hyphenated part of the first sentence beginning with that and ending in deserve closer attention shows that Fink does not agree with the legislation Pou is trying to pass. It is made clearer in the second sentence of the paragraph when she says, “health officials are now weighing, with little public discussion and insufficient scientific evidence.” The key word is insufficient because it shows Fink’s disagreement with the ideology. If not why use the word it could have stopped at public discussion. Throughout the rest of the story Fink seems to raise ethical questions along every stop in the story making the reader think in a situation such as this, what is the right decision?
Fink’s story is in chronological order starting in the section “A Shelter from the Storm.” The introduction to the story begins with a descriptive scene of the make shift morgue in Memorial Medical Center. The nutgraf jumps ahead in time to July of 2006 to explain the legal repercussions of decisions made by nurses and doctors at the hospital during hurricane Katrina. At this point, the story follows Anna Pou’s journey on passing legislation in Louisiana. The organization of the story is brilliant for the topic and effective in keeping the reader’s attention.
Fink Chooses Sides But Acknowledges Issues
Sheri Fink’s “The Deadly Choices at Memorial” depicts the fallout from Hurricane Katrina at Memorial Medical Center in Uptown New Orleans. Due to isolation, limited resources, and insufficient preparation for disaster on the government’s part, the hospital was forced to triage their patients, sorting them according to their medical conditions. The healthiest patients were given priority evacuation status, while the sickest patients were left at the bottom of the list. Fink’s narrative of the events during this catastrophe, explained in chronological order, sometimes abandoning chronology for topical arrangement, illustrate what may have led to some patients allegedly being euthanized by nurses and doctors. The piece focuses on Dr. Ann Pou’s involvement in the alleged acts, her indictment, and the discussion about triage medicine.
Though a very fair, well reported article, readers can determine Fink opposes Dr. Pou’s actions. Before exploring Dr. Pou’s involvement at Memorial Medical Center after Hurricane Katrina, Fink quotes Dr. Ewing Cook, who explained why he “hastened the demise” of a patient. “I gave her medicine so I could get rid of her faster… get the nurses off the floor.” Dr. Cook acknowledges consulting with Dr. Pou regarding prescriptions that would “hasten” the death of patients. Placing this, rather blunt, explanation of the situation before Dr. Pou’s side of the story (though much is expressed through her lawyers), makes the doctor’s actions look questionable. Not to mention, Fink spends a lot of time (deservedly) reporting why Emmett Everett, a nearly four hundred pound quadriplegic, “was given something for his dizziness” by Dr. Pou and ended up passing away shortly after.
Still, Fink doesn’t depict the doctor as an evil mastermind, but as a medical professional struggling under extreme conditions and little rest to provide care to patients and evacuate a hospital. At one point, Fink illustrates Dr. Pou sitting on a bench, exhausted with “less than an hour’s sleep.”
Most importantly, Fink acknowledges that it will never be known what Dr. Pou actually did or why, and that the arguments the doctor makes regarding emergency situation (triage) protocol are worth looking at. Fink writes, “This is particularly important as health officials are now weighing, with little public discussion and insufficient scientific evidence, protocols for making the kind of agonizing decisions that will, no doubt, arise again.”
All things considered, Fink sympathizes with Dr. Pou’s predicament but believes the doctor went too far. But the writer can only report the information, much of which as Fink indicates, we will never know. Her beliefs are merely speculatory, and she does a good job masking them.