Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink Published by Crown Publishing Group on January 1, 2013
Genres/Lists: Non-Fiction, Political
Pages: 558
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Today I am reviewing Five Days At Memorial, and tomorrow I will discuss the questions that it left me with.
Imagine this scenario: You’re stuck in a hospital without electricity, food, or proper resources to care for your patients. Some are going to die and there’s nothing you can do about it. Would you help ease their pain by euthanizing them, or hold out hope that help will arrive? And how would you decide which people to give the drugs to and which ones to rescue?
These are, on the surface, the questions that the doctors at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans asked themselves while they waited out Hurricane Katrina. But what if there was more to the story than that? What if, in actuality, the patients weren’t about to die? These questions are exactly what author Sheri Fink set out to do when she started interviewing the hundreds of witnesses that helped recreate their five days in hell. Their choices would affect them forever, and for some would result in criminal charges.
Source: Paolo Pellegrin/Magnum, for The New York Times
When I first started reading this book, I couldn’t decide what side of the ethical line I stood. On the one hand, killing someone without their consent is wrong, but on the other hand, I can’t even imagine being put in a situation that requires even thinking about such a thing, so who am I to judge? But as I started reading the book, or more accurately, as I started taking this journey, I found myself feeling every possible emotion a person can feel when reading a book. I started out sad, then turned sympathetic, followed immediately by horror, and ending with anger. As the facts unravelled, I found myself completely shocked by the utter breakdown in communication and both the hospital and government’s failure to prepare for such an event.
Five Days At Memorial is an important and difficult read. Hurricane Katrina blew in to New Orleans and the city is still recovering, and so this book is an important part our American history. While it shines a light on our government and corporate failures, it also highlights the resiliency of the human spirit and will to survive. I highly recommend this book, but I do so with the warning that it addresses some very important and controversial issues involving end-of-life care and, in all honesty, will leave you a bit outraged.
