Nursing Home Owners Charged for Katrina Neglect - why not politicians?

If nursing home people can be charged for leaving behind patients during Katrina (which I think they should) - why can't we indict our politicians who neglected the entire N.O. / Gulf Coast region?

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/09/13/katrina.nursinghome/index.html

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (CNN) -- The attorney for a couple charged with 34 counts of negligent homicide said Tuesday his clients never abandoned the nursing home where people tried to ride out Hurricane Katrina.

The Category 4 hurricane swamped St. Rita's Nursing Home in St. Bernard Parish, near New Orleans, killing 34 people August 29.

On Tuesday, Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti Jr. charged Mable and Salvador Mangano Sr., both 65, with 34 counts of negligent homicide. (Watch the attorney general explain the charges -- 4:23)

Foti said the nursing home's patients should have been moved to a safer place.

"They did not die of natural causes; they drowned," Foti told reporters. "Thirty-four people drowned in a nursing home where they should have been evacuated."

The Manganos, who face up to five years on each count, surrendered Tuesday to Medicaid Fraud Control Unit investigators in Baton Rouge and posted bail.

Jim Cobb, an attorney for the Manganos, told CNN that his clients said they were never told about the mandatory evacuation, and the couple were concerned that if they moved their patients, many would have died.

The owners stayed in the nursing home through the storm with their children, grandchildren, and nieces and nephews, he said.

Tammy Daigle, a nurse at St. Rita's, agreed that the Manganos didn't want to risk losing any patients.

"Instead of endangering their lives, they [the Manganos] thought they could stay safely in the building with all of them," she told CNN.

But Foti said the owners had plenty of opportunity to move their charges out of the facility. The Manganos were asked if they wanted to evacuate the building and were offered buses; in addition, they had signed last April a contract with Acadian Ambulance Service to provide transportation in the event an evacuation was needed, Foti said, but "they were never called."

Dr. Bryan Bertucci, a coroner, said he called all five nursing homes in the parish as the storm was threatening the city, and all but St. Rita's said they were evacuating their patients.

By Sunday at 2 p.m., when the danger was imminent and a mandatory evacuation order had been issued, he called back and spoke with Mrs. Mangano.

"I told her I had two buses with two drivers that would take them wherever they want," Bertucci told CNN.

But he said he was told that five special needs patients could not be evacuated. "She said, 'I have five nurses, I have a generator, and I've spoken to the families and they said it was OK.' "

The Manganos had a spotless record for 20 years, and the home was well-regarded in the community, Cobb, their attorney, said. Eighty-five percent of the patients were from St. Bernard Parish, he said.

"At the end of the day the relatives of these people decided that it was best for their relatives to be there," he said.

Workers at the nursing home called each family, Cobb said, to tell them they were prepared with supplies and medicine and were staying at the home. Only six people came to get family members, he said.

Bertucci said the Manganos had provided good care before the storm, but he found fault with their decision not to evacuate. "I think they made a poor decision," he said.

Foti said it was unclear whether all 34 bodies were patients, family members or people who had sought refuge in the home.

Between 40 and 50 other people were rescued from the facility, St. Bernard Parish Sheriff Jack Stevens has said. Cobb said the Manganos "saved 52 lives."

Wow - first time ever bush has taken responsibility for failure:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/13/katrina.washington/index.html

Bush: 'I take responsibility' for federal failures after Katrina
Bush to address nation Thursday about Katrina

Tuesday, September 13, 2005; Posted: 3:14 p.m. EDT (19:14 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush said Tuesday he takes responsibility for the federal government's failures in responding to Hurricane Katrina.

"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government and to the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said during a joint news conference with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. (Watch Bush's comments -- 0:47)

Bush was responding to a reporter's question about whether Americans should be concerned that the government is not prepared to respond to another disaster or terrorist attack after it took several days for aid and troops to arrive in New Orleans and other areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

He repeated his desire to find out exactly what went wrong on every level of government.

"It's in our national interest that we find out exactly what went on ... so we can better respond," Bush said.

A bipartisan joint congressional committee is to review the response at all levels of government to the hurricane and report its findings to Congress no later than February 15.

Bush praised the first responders and the U.S. Coast Guard, who risked their lives to rescue New Orleans residents stranded on their rooftops.

"I'm not going to defend the process going in, but I will defend the people on the front line of saving lives," Bush said.

Earlier in the day, the White House said the president will address the nation Thursday night about the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

The 9 p.m. ET address is the latest administration reaction to Katrina, which roared ashore on August 29.

"The president will talk to the American people about the recovery and the way forward on the longer-term rebuilding," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters, according to Reuters.

Bush is expected to make his address from storm-wracked Louisiana, where the president toured damaged New Orleans neighborhoods on Monday.

On Monday, Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Mike Brown resigned, after questions were raised about his qualifications and for what critics call a bungled response to Katrina's destruction. (Full story)

Bush chose David Paulison, director of FEMA's preparedness division, as interim director.

Paulison said Tuesday he planned to focus on getting people out of shelters "and into some type of either semi-permanent or permanent housing."

Speaking at a news conference, he also pledged to help victims by working with state and local officials.

"This has to be a partnership, because ultimately the communities are entitled to take responsibility and empower themselves," Paulison said.

Paulison, who is also administrator for the U.S. Fire Administration, was a former fire chief in Miami-Dade County, Florida.

Brown's resignation came three days after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff recalled him to Washington and replaced him as point man for Katrina relief efforts.

Since then, Vice Adm. Thad Allen, the Coast Guard's chief of staff, has been leading FEMA's mission along the Gulf Coast.

Chertoff said he expects to make other appointments to FEMA in coming days, "including a permanent deputy director to augment the resources available to assist with FEMA's vital mission."

Brown's fall came quickly. On September 2, Bush told the 50-year-old lawyer, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." (Watch Brown's interview with CNN on September 2 -- 2:11)

Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, applauded the latest development. "I think it is clearly in the country's interest," Kennedy said.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said he was not surprised.

"Things didn't go as well as it should have," said the Tennessee Republican. But Frist added, "Now, I am very pleased where we are."

CNN's John King and Suzanne Malveaux contributed to this report.

I like this story better. Seems a Democrat Representative from NO used the National Guard to secure some of his belongings.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/HurricaneKatrina/story?id=1123495&page=1

Wow, mixed feelings on this one.

Some of the private nursing homes in Louisiana have historically ranked among the worst in a plagued national industry. Underfunded, poorly staffed, filthy patients warehoused and sometimes abused, cleaned up just in time for visiting hours...

having said that, where were these two businesspeople supposed to obtain the emergency assistance to evacuate 30+ elderly patients in the middle of all the chaos?

-- jj

How about we concentrate on FEMA outsourcing the clean-up of the deceased to a Texas company involved in a body dumping scandal in 1999. No need for accurate body counts here --just move on --nothing to see.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/9/8/1269/39920

That is indeed disturbing and outrages me, but does not the story I linked at least raise the hair on your neck?

I'm running out of hairs to stick out over the outrage I have for this man-made disaster.
This should be a wake-up call to all citizens across all party lines. Hold people you place in jobs of responsability ACCOUNTABLE for their actions. From the top on down.

I agree completely.

Bush has no right to take responsability for anything. He should take irresponsability instead. The Dufus-In-Chief did SFN for 5 days!!!!!!!! Oh yeah, I'm sorry --he ate cake and strummed on a guitar while the people of New Orleans swirled around in toxic flood water.

Guess we have Nero AND Marie Antionette in office. I never thought I could be more disgusted at "Hesitant" Bush.

Yep. That's just wrong.

I say for the duration of the disaster, we cap the salaries of politicians, managers and administrators at whatever the prevailing wage is for construction labor in Louisiana. Oh wait... silly me, they've suspended the prevailing wage requirements for construction labor! $8 an hour enough for you, Mr. President?

How about we retroactively deduct his vacation time from his paycheck.

The problem I have here with this whole idea of manslaughter charges against the nursing home owners is that it is not clear where the line is drawn, and what are the global legal ramifications for a conviction. This comes back to the brother's keeper notion. Are these people being charged for using what they perceived, based on years of living through many past hurricanes, to be their best judgement, given there was no clear mandate issued to evacuate by the city and state? If the mandate was clear to evacuate, then maybe charges do need to be filed, but if it was not clear then how have they broken the law? That nursing home just as easily could have survived the storm had the levees held, as the city thought they would, and just as easily as many other places survived. It's possible the patients could have died being transported out.

None of us have crystal balls where we can predict the future, especially regarding the chaos of mother nature in a severe storm. One man survived the hurricane only to die on a bus that overturned. Do we hold the people who put him on the bus accountable for that, claiming deaths by vehicles are much more likely than dying within a stable structure?

I feel if the state wants to press charges then they are looking at the wrong people to charge. It's easy to look in hindsight and say someone took the wrong road, and thus charge these people for a choice they were forced to make. The bigger question is why did this choice rest in the hands of the nursing home owners in the first place? How can a city or state try to convict people for not taking adequate action to save human life when it is clear they themselves also did not take the necessary action, but on a much larger scale? What about all the other people who died in the storm? Who will take responsibility for them? Shall we start gathering the wood to burn the witches?

Certain assumptions were made by many people which added to this natural disaster. First, when people live through such storms regularly they tend to become complacent, thinking they have seen it it all before and lived through the worst. This is just human nature. Second, we tend to always think it will be the other guy who will be the victim, not us. Third, we tend to think we have much more control over our environment than we in fact do (who really imagined a whole city would be wiped out??). Forth, we tend to pass the buck and think it's someone else who will handle the situation. Along with that, we prefer to blame others for those things we feel were not our responsibilty. Finally, we forget we are human and we cannot often predict the future course of events, regardless of our best intentions.

One might ask, where were the relatives of these family members? Why did they not come and get their loved ones out of harm's way? Where was the federal government with the resources to evacuate on a grand scale? Where were you and I helping these people get out? Why did the levees break? Why was the city built near the ocean under sea level where hurricanes are common? Why, why, why? There are no answers to these questions. No one person was at fault or to blame. This was a terrible disaster, and by definition of a disaster people die and suffer. Most people involved at every level made what they thought were the best decisions at the time, based on the information at hand, and their best guess of the future, based on weighing that information and past experience.

So, where do we draw the line in determining responsibility for acts of mother nature? Clearly, many people underestimated the power of this storm, and overestimated the ability of our technology and government to manage the effects. So, for this we should prosecute two people for being human? I wonder who will be prosecuted at Memorial Medical Center where a number of people died, as well as other locations.

Leave Nero out of this.

I wonder what all of those very vocal "Security Moms" from last year's election are thinking now?

I really could not believe it at first when I heard it.. thought it might be a parody of sorts.. but he did what I president and leader SHOULD do. Even if his decisions and actions had been fine (which I don't think is true! but I digress) a leader should take responsibility.

As recently as the 80's (can't speak for now) TEACHERS got punished if students where behind in class in some countries.

While hell is frozen over and I'm saying Bush is doing his job, he also thanked all the world at the UN for the outpouring of help.

Ironically, he's probably less to blame in this case than many other parties. Of course, politicians are sneaky, so this may in fact be the very reason he's doing so.

really? enlighten me.