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Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital cover

Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital

Sheri Fink

4

awards won

37

score

Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital

In the tradition of the best writing on human behaviour and moral choices in the face of disaster, physician and reporter Sheri Fink reconstructs five days at New Orleans' Memorial Medical Center during Hurricane Katrina and draws the reader into the lives of those who struggled mightily to survive and to maintain life amidst chaos. After Katrina struck and the floodwaters rose, the power failed, and the heat climbed, exhausted caregivers chose to designate certain patients last for rescue. Months later, several health professionals faced criminal allegations that they deliberately injected numerous patients with drugs to hasten their deaths. Five Days at Memorial, the culmination of six years of reporting, unspools the mystery of what happened in those days, bringing the reader into a hospital fighting for its life and into a conversation about the most terrifying form of health care rationing. In a voice at once involving and fair, masterful and intimate, Fink exposes the hidden dilemmas of end-of-life care and reveals just how ill-prepared we are for the impact of large-scale disasters—and how we can do better.

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Publisher
Atlantic Books Ltd
Year
2013
ISBN-13
9781782393764
Genre
History
Topics
Hurricane KatrinaMedical ethics and end-of-life careDisaster preparedness

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