Thread: Corona Virus

I have no words.

Queensland Government denies toddler hotel quarantine exemption after open-heart surgery - ABC News

Depends on the hospital and which state it is in.
Some health services would use a standardised scoring system that predicts short-term survival (that is, the person deemed most likely to live would get the bed). But when they use the scoring system, and what additional criteria they take into account, varies between hospitals.

Some hospitals would use exclusion criteria based on certain health conditions. The types of conditions vary between hospitals. For example, one hospital would use a body mass index (BMI) above 40 to exclude people who are obese, while another would exclude people with alcohol dependency.

In “tie-breaker” situations, when it’s not possible to make a decision based on the scoring system, health conditions, or the severity of illness alone, hospitals may use tie-breaker criteria.

Tie-breaker criteria were also different across different hospitals. Some hospitals would prioritise pregnant people, sole parents, health-care workers, and so on. Others would not.
Several of the hospitals plan to use a team of experienced clinicians not involved in the patient’s care as a triage team. Some hospitals have indicated a lottery is the fairest thing to do in tie-breaker situations.

And if maximising the number of people whose lives are saved is the overarching ethical goal, governments and medical staff need to establish how this is best achieved.

This would mean for COVID-19 that lifesaving ventilation is offered on a basis of prioritising those who will be most likely to survive as a result of the intervention. This may also be combined with the likely speed of their recovery – as this would free up ventilators for others sooner. This combination reflects the ethical goal by offering the highest probability that the greatest number of lives will be saved overall.

Difficult decisions are being made on a daily basis by medical staff around the world. InkheartX/ShutterstockBut in high-pressure situations, any such approach will likely be simplistic – such as an algorithm based on the age of the patient and any health conditions. This could lead to disadvantaged groups being systematically discriminated against. The elderly and those with underlying health conditions, for example, could be deprioritised because they will be less likely to survive or take longer to recover. Even if additional considerations are added to the process – such as the potential quality of life or subsequent length of a person’s life – these groups are likely to fair badly.

Strict adherence to the overarching moral goal of maximising lives saved might also require aspects of positive discrimination. If, for example, the patient is a highly skilled, older medic, then prioritising them might result in more lives overall being saved. While this may be reassuring for key workers, the danger is that it adds in a difficult moral evaluation as to the nature of everyone’s role in society.



In Victoria, whether you get an ICU bed could depend on the hospital