| Should hospitals be allowed to remove patients from ventilators to give them to other patients that may survive H1N1? |
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Asked 2 years ago
by odessaphiles  United States |
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About
I'm a 40 year resident of South Florida, just outside Fort Lauderdale. I've enjoyed watching the area change due to immigration. A lot of it good, some of it bad. But, I realized a long time ago that there is good and bad in every nationality, religion....you get the drift. I have become interested in the Scottish Premier League and in the English Premier League. In the SPL, I root for Heart of Midlothian as my family is from Edinburgh. In the EPL, I cheer for Liverpool as their owners also own the Boston Red Sox. Fenway Park in Boston holds many fond memories of growing up and my young adult life. And, as always, you can e-mail me at odessaphiles@gmail.com....
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5 Points
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The article to which I am referring to...
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sfl-swine-flu-crisis-propublica-sboct18,0,2336680.story
Yes, it is called triage.
I think ewe missed the point. They want to remove patients on ventilators that are in the hospital and have a poor prognosis to give them to the younger patients that need them that have H1N1. I wonder who makes the call. Kind of like the ultimate death panel...
I didn't miss the point at all. In a state of national emergency (as in a widespread epidemic that was killing people), you would revert to this kind of triage. It is not meant to be kind or humanitarian, but to conserve limited resources for those who can best use it.
The setting for the article is the state of Florida. Florida probably has a higher percentage of old people than any state in the country. If old people start getting "the bums rush" or worse, they will just start looking for more humane places to spend their final years. If Florida wants to continue to maintain it's reputation as a good place for older folks to retire they had been quit thinking of new ways to knock them off. :-)
A little bit on triage:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triage
One of the big questions in any honest national health care debate is exactly about scarce resources.
Right now, about $0.25 of every dollar goes to the insurance companies. And about half goes to the last year of life. That leaves only a quarter to spend on everything else.
If we WERE to go national (not that that will happen. We're not even gonna get a public option.)--but if we were, we would have to make exactly those kind of triage decision on spending. Do we try and save every old person for just another 48 hours, or do we immunize an entire neighborhood instead?
Who gets to make that call ? Family, attending physician, nurse, hospital administrator ? What percentage of survivability is the cutoff ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triage
Unfortunately the triage system you describe is the method determined at the scene (accident site, battlefield, etc.) I don't believe they have implemented it at a hospital outside of determined the severity of the injury -- I don't see them turning away ambulances because the person has a good chance of dying.
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[1 point] 2 years ago by deleted user ReplyIf they have already been diagnosed as terminal then your ideas are okay, but I'd hate to see them start wacking old people just because they're old.
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[1 point] 2 years ago by deleted user Reply