Medical Rationing

[SpikedRocker]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/05/05....ap/index.html
This story is causing some heated debates over who should be treated in a medical disaster. If you are old, severely hurt or burned, have chronic medical symptoms (severe heart problems or even alzheimer's), you might not get medical help in a medical emergency. Reasoning being to ration the use of medical equipment such as ventilators, surgury rooms, and other things that may be in short order in most hospitals.
I find this troubling due to that it all comes down to the doctors perception of the patient. One doctor might find someone's burns are worse than another doctor. In a medical disaster things happen so fast that if you wait to make decisions of who gets treatment first you might loose more people. In my opinion, take who you can when they come in. If someone arrives before another its just natures way of things. To make rules or guidelines governing who deserves medical treatment is wrong. Everyone should be eligible for medical treatment when they need it.
I guess I am more emotional over this because my father essentially died because of simular things already in place. He didn't show symptoms serious enough to be seen right away. He waited in the waiting room for 10 hours as other people with "more serious" things went before him. It turned out to be a rare quick acting diesease that if not diagnosed quickly it is 99% fatal. So if he would have been seen earlier he might have lived longer than a week in ICU. Just my opinion though.

[Zero001]

It's nothing new. The article is basically fear mongering a "what if" situation. It basically comes down to what hospital you go to, time of day or even what day, who sees you, money/insurance, severeness, age, and a couple of other factors in your daily life. High traffic emergency rooms have similar protocols on a daily basis.

[SpikedRocker]

The artical refers to a SARS type epidemic that rarely happens but you are right zero, heavily populated areas would be bad for cases like that.

[Captain Colon]

I guess I am more emotional over this because my father essentially died because of simular things already in place. He didn't show symptoms serious enough to be seen right away. He waited in the waiting room for 10 hours as other people with "more serious" things went before him. It turned out to be a rare quick acting diesease that if not diagnosed quickly it is 99% fatal. So if he would have been seen earlier he might have lived longer than a week in ICU. Just my opinion though.

Yeah, that's kind of how triage works...If you have one guy with a sore throat and diarrhea and one guy with a hole in his head, are you gonna say "whoa we better get this guy tested for ebola right away...just put a gauze pad on that hole for now or something?"

[phatman76]

The real solution here is to not let the situation occurs - always have enough supplies and personnel for any disaster. However, that is impossible. The first rule of medical triage is to treat the most severe cases that can be saved first. As callus as it may seem, in a massive bus accident or other disaster, moving from those with no hope of survival to those who will probably die without immediate attention is the best thing to do. Those with non-fatal injuries also get in the back of the line. Of course mistakes are made, and it is tragic, but the only solution is to try harder next time and keep going.

[PotshotPolka]

Yeah, my Dad as an EMT/Firefighter had to go to attend a lecture on a full-blown SARS/Super virus outbreak.
Estimated afflicted population is those with the strongest immune systems, and would result in roughly 50% of the working population being infected.