Outrage over the unvaccinated; a crisis in bioethics
I was wondering when this discussion was going to crop up....
Quote:
The pandemic has triggered a new debate over what used to be a settled principle of bioethics — that you don't treat patients differently based on past behaviour that may have contributed to their condition.
"The core fundamental principle of clinical ethics tells us that once a person enters the hospital as a patient, whatever got them there is no longer part of the equation," said Vardit Ravitsky, who teaches bioethics at the Université de Montreal and Harvard Medical School.
Quote:
"Where I see some disagreement within the community of bioethicists is precisely on this point — can we use vaccination status as one criterion within triage protocols?" said Ravitsky.
"If we have two patients with the same level of clinical need, same age, same context, but one is vaccinated and one isn't, could we de-prioritize the patient who is unvaccinated by choice? There is a minority of bioethicists who are becoming more accepting of this logic at this point in time."
Ravitsky said she personally opposes using vaccination status to make judgments on triage.
Joe Vipond, an emergency room physician in Calgary, said there's no justification for blaming patients in the ER.
"A huge number of people are there because of poor decisions, because of substance abuse, because of other people's violence. We decided as a profession to treat everyone equally," he said.
"So it doesn't matter if you're a smoker and have emphysema. We'll see you and take care of you. It doesn't matter if you're intoxicated. We will see you and we won't judge you. I will offer you help and try to get you through that.
"So I have a hard time deciding that shouldn't apply to the poor decision of not getting vaccinated."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/pan...cron-1.6319844
