is dr Horace Baltz a fictional version of a real doctor?
yes dr Horace Baltz is based on the real-life doctor of the same name who served as Memorial’s internal medicine consultant during Hurricane Katrina and the flood that followed. When Baltz started working there, it was called the Southern Baptist Hospital. At the time of the hurricane, he was a long-time Memorial/Baptist physician and past president of the hospital’s medical staff. Baltz was also an important part of founding a hospital ethics group. Doctors, nurses, and other Memorial employees viewed Baltz as a leader. As they waited to exit the building, Baltz said that he thought everyone would get out alive, to a round of applause.
The Times-Picayune took this picture
In the end, Baltz was taken out of the hospital building by boat. The book the show is based on, Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink, says when he found the bodies at Memorial and heard that his colleagues had been accused of euthanasia, He was angry. “He [Baltz] Concerned about the tarnished reputation of the hospital where he had spent his entire career, the reputation that so many of his colleagues at Baptist and Memorial had worked hard and long to build and maintain,” Fink wrote in the source. The accusations also made him remember something clear.
According to the source text, on September 1, 2005, before the evacuation was complete, Baltz heard three doctors speak. One of the doctors said, “Our most difficult task will be to convince the nurses that what we are asking them to do is okay.” What Baltz heard may have been about letting people die early. Baltz did not want to continue practicing at the Memorial when it reopened under new ownership. Fink’s book states that Baltz wrote his resignation letter when he realized “his values and ethics were no longer aligned with those of his peers.”
According to the source text, Baltz also wrote a letter to investigators for the Louisiana Attorney General to encourage them to further investigate the possible mercy killings at the hospital. as dr Anna Pou was accused of killing patients, Baltz found it difficult to understand what was going on. “Pou’s alleged actions, he thought, destroyed confidence in the medical profession, which is a cornerstone of society,” Fink wrote in her book.
where is dr Horace Baltz now?
after dr Horace Baltz Memorial, he worked at the Touro Infirmary, a non-profit hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana. Baltz is said to have given up his work as a doctor in August 2017 after 58 years. He was also involved in the Mater Dolorosa Church and St. Stephen’s Church. Baltz died on December 6, 2017 because an infection made it difficult for him to breathe. His wife, two nieces and a nephew all lived on after him. Baltz had worked at Southern Baptist Hospital/Memorial Medicine Center for about forty-four years.