5 ms·
Meanwhile back in civilisation, healthcare is allocated by need.
by somewhereoutth 5y ago
Meanwhile back in civilisation, healthcare is allocated by need.
- dragontamer 5y agoLets say the hospital is full, as is the case in Alaska Regional Hospital, and then 20 more COVID19 patients come in. 1. You can either kick out some people in beds (making room for the new patients). 2. Or, you turn away the patients (and wish them the best of course). Those are the only two choices. When you're out of beds, you're out of beds. Governors across the country have been pulling in student nurses, and increasing nurse pay to encourage retired nurses back into the hospitals. But eventually, you run out of nurses / beds / resources, and run up against this hard limit. We have an ability to magically summon new nurses, but all those abilities have been used up by now (we had a nursing shortage _before_ COVID19 happened after all) The correct answer, from an "ethics" perspective, is to be ready for the situation, and ethically prioritize the different cases. But all of them "need" the hospital bed. But the physics of the situation means that some of them are going to go home without treatment. --------- Then tomorrow, 20 more patients come in, and you repeat the process. The day after that, another 20 patients. Etc. etc. You then repeat this situation until the COVID19 surge is over.