As reported 34 nursing home patients at St. Rita's Nursing Home died of drowning as the owners decided not to evacuate these patients. According to the owners, they said they had to make a choice on which nursing home patients to evacuate. It has also been
reported that the owners of St. Rita’s Nursing Home in St. Bernard Parish were asked if they wanted to move (the patients). The owners said no.
According to a report on Fox News Live on Sunday, September 18, 2005, one guest on the show said that the owners should NOT be held responsible for negligent homicide. This individual places blame on the local government for the levees breeching. He states that the owners of St. Rita's Nursing Home could not have foreseen the levees breeching. This is true. Nobody could have foreseen the levees breeching. However, you have a category 5 hurricane heading in your direction and is about four days away. These nursing home owners have an obligation to protect those that are in their care, and that means implementing evacuation plans.
Common sense is at play here. When you place your elderly parents in a nursing home, you expect those people to care for your parents. The owners of St. Rita's Nursing Home had an obligation to protect the ALL of the lives of their patients that are in their care. This does not mean making a choice to on which patients to evacuate.
Hurricane Katrina was four days away out in the Gulf of Mexico before making landfall. That is four days these owners had to evacuate ALL of their patients out of harms way. If the Hurricane would have made a sudden turn at the last minute to spare the region, then that would have been the best case scenario.
These were 34 lives that could have been saved if these nursing home owners were not negligent in their duties. For that guest on Fox News Live to say that these owners are not negligent is wrong and insensitive to the families that lost their loved ones.
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