Battlefield Triage vs. Indiscriminate Rationing

And now the Florida Department of Health has issued a set of guidelines that instructs hospitals on what to do "if the state is overwhelmed by [H1N1] cases."
The guidelines recommend that hospitals bar "patients with incurable cancer, end-stage multiple sclerosis and other conditions from being admitted to hospitals." Another "recommendation" is that doctors "remove patients with poor prognoses from ventilators to treat those who have better chances of surviving."
To facilitate this culling of the herd, the guidelines "suggest" that "intensive care unit patients and those using ventilators to be reassessed after 48 to 72 hours." Those who have gotten sicker "would be taken off the machines or discharged from critical care" and replaced by those "who may have a better chance of survival."
posted by Travis at
11/11/2009 05:46:00 PM
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