Katrina Hospital Staff Accused of Killing Patients

A doctor and two nurses have been charged with deliberately killing patients stranded in a New Orleans hospital after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city. Cut off by the floodwaters, lacking food, water and electricity, and enduring temperatures approaching 38C (100F), staff at the New Orleans Memorial Medical Centre ended the lives of several patients, the Louisiana attorney general's office said.

"We're not calling this euthanasia. We're not calling this mercy killings. This is second-degree murder," Kris Wartelle, a spokeswoman for the attorney general, Charles Foti, told reporters.

Mr Foti was expected to reveal further details of the case against Dr Anna Pou and nurses Lori Budo and Cheri Landry, including how many of the 45 people who died at the hospital they are suspected of killing. The three women, arrested last night then released pending trial, were expected to make a preliminary court appearance later today.

In the aftermath of the Katrina crisis, Dr Pou told a Louisiana television station some patients were under "do not resuscitate" orders made prior to the hurricane. "In other words ... to allow them to die naturally and not to use any heroic methods to resuscitate them," she said. "We all did everything in our power to give the best treatment we could to the patients in the hospital, to make them comfortable."

The investigation into deaths at the hospital gathered pace in October 2005 when Bryant King, a doctor working there during the hurricane, told CNN he had heard another doctor talk of putting patients "out of their misery". He had seen Dr Pou holding a handful of syringes later that day, he said.

But in a statement at the time Dr Pou's lawyer, Rick Simmons, painted a picture of medical staff working "tirelessly for five days to save and evacuate patients, none of whom were abandoned".