[StBernard] Pendleton Memorial took 'reasonable precautions' for Hurricane Katrina, former CEO testifies

Westley Annis westley at da-parish.com
Thu Jan 14 07:44:56 EST 2010


Pendleton Memorial took 'reasonable precautions' for Hurricane Katrina,
former CEO testifies
By Bill Barrow, The Times-Picayune
January 13, 2010, 9:08PM

The former Pendleton Memorial Methodist Hospital chief executive told a jury
in a wrongful-death suit Wednesday that he was unfamiliar before Hurricane
Katrina with the details of the emergency power system that failed after the
storm because of alleged design flaws.

The placement of the system's fuel pump in a ground-level mechanical
building is at the crux of the negligence claims filed by the family of
Althea LaCoste.

The 73-year-old New Orleans woman, who needed electricity to power her
ventilator, survived the 18-hour power outage that resulted when the flooded
fuel pump could no longer supply a roof-top generator. But she died some
time later, her family posits, as a result of the strain during that period.


Then-CEO Larry Graham, now a hospital executive in Lake Charles, testified
that maintenance workers realized Aug. 29, as Katrina still moved over the
city, that the mechanical building could be submerged.

"They literally had to swim across the street to go into that building,"
Graham said. "They came back and said, indeed, it had been flooded." Asked
whether he knew the pump was there, he replied, "Not till they told me."

Graham also confirmed he went fishing on Aug. 27, leaving "before dawn" not
knowing that the projected path of Katrina's eye included New Orleans: "When
I went fishing, I was still unaware the course had changed."

Graham maintained that the hospital did everything it could to prepare for
an event like Katrina. "We believed we had taken reasonable precautions to
prepare for the storm and thought we would be able to provide care," he
said.

The case is noteworthy because it could mark the first time a hospital is
held liable for wrongful death stemming from disaster planning, as opposed
to medical malpractice. That finding could result a new standard for health
care providers who face several similar Louisiana cases awaiting trial.

Laurence Best, the LaCostes' attorney, seemed intent on framing Graham as
the face of a corporate structure at Universal Health Services that, even if
unintentionally, made LaCoste's death bed.

Best noted the "due diligence" research UHS conducted before buying
Methodist in 2003, suggesting they were aware of the emergency power system
set-up. And he read passages of Methodist's disaster preparation documents.
"Preparation must be total and complete," he quoted.

At one point, Graham said, "The plan is not a bible. It's a guideline to
follow in preparation of the storm." And later, "In the last six years, I've
been to four or five hospitals with four different (disaster plan) books. I
don't know what's in each book. I'm sorry."

Graham said facilities workers never raised concerns about the pump, and he
said he was unaware of the mechanical building flooding before Katrina.
Prompted by Best, Graham said workers spent Saturday and Sunday before
landfall moving supplies and equipment from Methodist's first floor.

The LaCoste case also asserts that the hospital should have evacuated
earlier than several days after the storm. "We didn't have time to
evacuate," Graham said.

Graham confirmed that Methodist evacuated its intensive care unit for
Hurricane Ivan in 2004 and, for Katrina, took in ICU patients from Chalmette
Memorial Hospital, because "their ICU was on the first floor." Best will
continue questioning Graham on Friday, followed by defense attorney David
Bowling's cross examination.

Bowling used Wednesday to pepper LaCoste's daughter, Corliss LaCoste, about
her mother's significant health problems.

As he did in opening statements, Bowling emphasized Althea LaCoste's
diabetes, high blood pressure, pneumonia, congestive heart failure,
surgeries, kidney dialysis, the home ventilator implanted in her neck and a
months-long hospitalization the year she died.

The younger LaCoste cast her mother as improving in August 2005 after
returning home from the lengthy hospital stay. She talked about the physical
and respiratory therapy her mother received. The dialysis, she said, was no
longer needed.

Checking into Methodist on Aug. 28, 2005, she said, was only for her mother
to get a stable power source for her ventilator while the family evacuated.

Bowling, meanwhile, highlighted a "do not resuscitate" order the family
filed in July 2005. He read notes from a home health nurse about Althea
LaCoste being "lethargic" and "semi-comatose" some days. And he referenced
August discharge orders that suggested the elder LaCoste was going home for
end-of-life hospice care.



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