NEW ORLEANS -- The New Orleans coroner says the death of 79-year-old Jannie Burgess, who died at Memorial Medical Center after Hurricane Katrina, will not be reclassified as a homicide.

"This patient was extremely sick," Dr. Frank Minyard said Thursday. "She had serious surgery the week before. She'd been on morphine around the clock. She had kidney failure, liver failure."

Burgess, who had developed a tolerance for morphine, was given seven injections of the drug, Minyard said. But he said that did not kill her. Death from the morphine would have been immediate, he said. Burgess did not die until three hours after she received the shots.

Questions about Burgess' death arose after a New York Times article was published in which Dr. Ewing Cook acknowledged increasing the dose of morphine he was giving Burgess. He also said that only the naive would believe that did not hasten her death.

The article, and Cook's admission, prompted District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro to ask in January for an autopsy report on Burgess.

Minyard turned the report over to Cannizzaro on Wednesday, he said. It showed the cause of death as "undetermined."

Cannizzaro's office said Thursday that the ruling meant homicide charges could not be pursued at this time.

Burgess had surgery for ovarian cancer just before the 2005 storm, Minyard said. At that time, her condition was found to be so serious that surgeons closed the incision without attempting to do anything, he said.

Doctors had offered her kidney dialysis two days before the hurricane hit, but she refused it, he said. The morphine may have made a minor contribution to her death, but it was not the primary cause, the coroner said.

Cook's attorney, Ralph Capitelli, said Thursday that Minyard made the right decision.

"My client stayed at Memorial after Katrina for the sole purpose of helping patients under what we all should remember were very difficult conditions," Capitelli said.

At least 34 people died at Memorial after the 2005 storm. Dr. Anna Pou and two nurses were arrested in connection with the deaths, but a grand jury did not indict them. They were not involved with Burgess' case and were not part of the latest investigation.