Tenet Says Records Are Removed

Tenet Healthcare Corp. said Sunday that the Louisiana attorney general removed medical records from the company’s Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans over the weekend, following a warrant from a parish judge.

The company said it was told by the attorney general’s office that the search was one of many the state planned to make in a probe of hospitals and nursing homes where deaths occurred during or after Hurricane Katrina.

Tenet said 34 patients at Memorial Medical Center died after Hurricane Katrina struck the city and before those patients could be evacuated. The Dallas-based company said 24 of the dead were patients housed at an acute-care facility operated by LifeCare Holdings Inc. on the hospital’s campus.

Many of those patients were seriously or terminally ill, and some depended on ventilators or other equipment. The hospital was without power, proper sanitation or air conditioning for four days after Katrina, Tenet said.

About 2,000 patients were successfully evacuated from the hospital, Tenet said. The company said it was cooperating with authorities.