awful story: nurses playing practical jokes on patients, ridiculing them and taking pictures

This goes way, way beyond the typical black humor that medical professionals resort to in dealing with stress. All kinds of lines have been crossed here: ethical, professional, and just plain human. I hope these cretins lose their licenses. BTW, St Tammany Parish is the White Flight suburb of New Orleans. I mention that only to point out that if it happens there, in a "good" hospital, to upper-middle class patients, it's probably happening everywhere, and if you're poor, you probably get it in spades. That great private health care system at work.

"...Campbell says one night last year a large man, weighing over 300 pounds, entered the emergency room at St. Tammany Parish Hospital. He had possibly overdosed on pain and anxiety medication.

“As soon as we got him in the bed, he was unconscious,” Campbell said.

That is when Campbell says a nurse named Clancy and some of her co-workers allegedly made fun of the unconscious patient.

“Clancy and the other nurse walks in and puts these glasses on these patients and starts to make fun of them,” Campbell said. “That wasn't funny enough, so they took charcoal that we dumped down his throat and painted his face like a football player and said, ‘Welcome to St. Tammany Parish Hospital ER. This is your initiation for trying to kill yourself.’”

And then, Campbell says the nurses pulled out their phones."

Full story here.
http://www.fox8live.com/content/news/featured/story/Lee-Zurik-Investigation-ER-horror-story/NIh3JgoWZ0qd2RiliUFiag.cspx

Dumb...

to the exclusion of poorer people, you've already crossed some sort of moral boundary. Is it surprising that some of the people working in such an institution would be morally deficient and likely to engage in this sort of behaviour?

What does the socioeconomic status of the hospital have to do with the essentials of the story?

but since it's located in a fairly well to do area, most of the patients are fairly well to do.

I get that part.

What would you have them do about that? Bus in people from the inner city in NoLa?

Again, this is really tangential the actual issue of the OP, but you brought it up and you're defending having done so. I am asking why.

:puke:

patients and posting pictures of them on Facebook:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/magazine/13FOB-Ethicist-t.html?scp=1&sq=ethicist%20medical%20students&st=cse

That or reality TV.