Isaac Whatever

There were two incidents in the katrina tragedy that I want to investigate.

A couple left the nursing home they operated without evacuating their patients. The patients, presumeably, died slowly and horribly. They couldn't be evacuated without dying, so even though it looked grim, staying where they were was their best chance at survival.

A number of hospital employees, faced with dying patients and failing equipment, gave the hopeless cases an overdose of morphine. Then, when possible, they stayed with the patients until they died.

These cases are interesting because they are so similar at face value, and so different in the reactions they bring out. In both cases, the equipment required to keep the patients alive failed. Patients couldn't be evacuated, and people were going to die.

In the nursing home, it seems that the couple abandoned the patients, and let them die horribly. In the hospital, people feel that the staff stayed with the patients, easing their deaths.

However, in the hospital, the staff assured the death of the patients. They made it a certainty. In the nursing home, the staff gave the patients the best chance for survival that they could.

So why then, do we feel so strongly that the couple in the nursing home are guilty of abandonment, and that the hospital staff are heroes for staying with their patients?

We're assuming here that the nursing home people weren't stupid idiots, and the hospital staff did their jobs to the best of their ability. This is probably incorrect, but who knows.