Tenet Healthcare Still Settling Katrina Cases

Over five years after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Tenet Healthcare Corp. has ultimately settled a class action lawsuit which was filed against them.

This class action suit mentioned how the healthcare provider that had been tending to patients at Memorial Medical Centre wasn't ready for the loss in electrical power after the hurricane.

In addition to this, it had been expressed how the medical center did not abide by correct evacuation plans, and didn't take several other required emergency steps.

As soon as the power was cut and the levees gave in, the middle of the town started to overflow, and temperatures inside rose to over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit.

This situation left workers as well as patients stuck without way of opening the windows or getting support. The center waited four days for help to come, and for some it was too late.

45 bodies had been collected from the medical centre after the storm, the largest amount of any medical center in the region.

Due to the high amount of deaths, the medical center had been put under enormous critique. The Louisiana Attorney General, Charles Foti had three medical doctors arrested for second-degree murder.

After going to the courts, the three were released, and one of them is currently in the process of suing Foti for damage and defamation to her reputation.

However, the employer of those three physicians, Tenet Healthcare Corp. has been in the courts for class actions various times since Katrina.

They've had to settle eleven additional court cases handling the basic issue of neglect. The most current case which arrived at a settlement on Wednesday was involving Preston and Tenet.

A spokesman for Tenet has claimed the arrangement is "amicable" even though no formal information have been made available since the judge still needs to accept the decision.

All in all, Tenet Healthcare Corp. forfeited in excess of $150 million in damages during Katrina. Half a dozen of their hospitals had been damaged, and the firm had planned to sell off three of these around the New Orleans region prior to 2007.

It's been a long number of years for the Preston family as well as the New Orleans region generally. Due to in excess of 1,800 deaths and more than $80 billion in damages, the metropolitan area is still rebuilding presently.