When the ICUs are filled and triage practices come into play there will be no hardened hearts required to save the greatest number of people.
No - I’m not a doctor and I’m not qualified to distinguish this. The doctors facing a full ICU and a flood of Omicron infected people will have to make these calls. Triage is not first come first served.
Why do people who so vehemently reject medical science even want to go to the hospital? /s
Turns out dying often hurts a lot.
Alright, I confess that I am really upset over this topic. If you have not made the call to cease medical interventions (turn them off) you really have no idea what you are asking. I have walked parents through letting their kid go. I have been the one flipping that switch. These memories wake me at night sometimes, even nearly 30 years later. And these were patients where we had exhausted all options and had nothing left. The idea of turning off someone who we still had options to “make room” for someone deemed “more deserving” makes me physically ill. I know a lot of docs, and none of them would be party to this. I don’t care the algorithm you use, the committees you assign responsibility to, it will still be the bedside staff doing it, seeing it, and taking home the scars on their souls. Please just stop. This will not be.
Not that Godwining ever wins arguments, but I agree with docosc here on this. This is a line we can’t cross. Once we cross this line, we don’t get to ever come back across it, and it’ll be far easier to cross it for future generations. Whether we want to admit it or not, the German T-4 program had many political proponents in the US because it was “for the betterment of society”, and we’ve rightly confined that to the dustbin of history as horribly awful and criminal steps. We can’t let that kind of mentality come in here, no matter what. It’s just not safe.
I would be just as happy if these were the last words on this subject and the thread closed.
You underestimate the level of IDGAF in healthcare for unvaxxed at this point.
I’m gonna throw in my own expertise as a historian and say, this is always true.
How about we stop letting the market decide what’s okay?
And how is that okay to emulate?
Here’s the thing… I do give a fuck. I really don’t need you or anyone else to tell me how I should feel.
OH, OH, I KNOW THIS ONE, I KNOW THIS ONE
It’s “insurance companies,” right?
Gupta is not suggesting what you describe. He’s talking about decisions that would be made at admissions, or in a triage like situation.
That is a huge leap and a false equivalence to say that a right wing desire to kill their political opposition is the same as what Gupta suggests when he says care must be prioritized to maximize best outcomes.
It is unethical in an emergency situation to not prioritize treatment. It is unethical in an emergency situation to refuse a vaccine when you could potentially harm other people.
Lot of people here talking a lot about decisions that they’re not going to have to make or live with the consequences of.
You mean like whether or not to get vaccinated?
Let’s send the unvaccinated to the back of the line…at restaurants, movie theaters, theme parks, sporting venues and other places where they are endangering themselves and others. That’s far enough.
I wish I could give you a hug, but I just found out I got exposed to someone with COVID on Tuesday (I’m fully vaxxed and boosted so I should be ok). I am absolutely stunned at the comments from some people here. It reminds me of the comments I hear from conservatives when talking about women who want or need an abortion (well they should have thought about that before they had sex), or people with HIV/AIDS, or people dealing with addictions. A lot of the unvaxxed are victims of years long (decades?) right wing propaganda. Others, like many Black Americans, are understandably distrustful of the health care establishment. If we refuse to treat either of these groups, we just reinforce their skepticism. Not only is it unethical, it will be ineffective.
Actually i wasn’t responding to Gupta, although I am not in favor of his idea either, but to more extreme suggestions brought by commentariat further down. HCW aren’t in the business of preventing people from accessing healthcare. Period. We treat smokers for lung cancer,drinkers for cirrhosis and teenagers for consequences of being stupid. If we ban people from healthcare because they made bad choices, hospitals would be very quiet.
Neither I nor @anon29537550 are not discussing Gupta, but what people HERE are discussing. People HERE have suggested that those who are unvaccinated should just be allowed to die while in care at the hospital.
And that would be use to deny people all kinds of care.
As well we should. But THAT is not a triage situation where you don’t have resources to deal with all that are seeking treatment. This is inherent in organ donation which Gupta used as an example, but would only be faced if a hospital was completely swamped with cases.
Frankly I’m just as shocked and upset by people saying treat’em all, first come first served… You have the exact same quandary of turning people away, refusing treatment, and probably more of them. All who are suspicious of “making decisions” that others have to make. Treating people in that situation with out discretion and priority is a decision with just as much and more in the way of bad outcomes. And it should never fall to one person - not progress to “pulling the plug” –– if somebody is admitted they are in for the whole ride. But triaging who you admit is done in a framework, not a burden dropped on one person in admissions. Its not like there is one doctor who has the burden of sending a transplant recipient to the bottom of the list - its a process established with criteria. Its designed to save more lives.
Jesus fucking christ I hope you’re not in charge of anybodies healthcare.
Once again, @anon29537550 is an actual doctor…I think he has a firm grasp on this shit. I don’t think he needs you explaining it to him…
