Doctors Treating Coronavirus Told to Discriminate Against Elderly Patients: They “Will be Left to Die” (Italy)

The world is in a state of paranoia currently as nations try to combat the spread and effect of the coronavirus. Italy is facing the worst of the crisis right now and its medical system has descended into a state of chaos, according to news reports about the situation there.

One doctor who is treating patients there likened the situation to treating patients in a battlefield, like Vietnam or the aftermath of the attacks on Pearl Harbor and having to make split-second decisions on which patients will be treated and which ones will be denied care after a quick triage.

Shockingly, the same anti-life rationing ethic that is pervading medicine nowadays when it comes to the promotion of euthanasia and assisted suicide has taken hold in Italy, as elderly and disabled patients face discrimination because they are not young and healthy.

And one news report indicates an Italian medical college has issued shocking guidelines to doctors and medical professionals telling them to just let elderly patients die. As The Atlantic reports:

Those who are too old to have a high likelihood of recovery, or who have too low a number of “life-years” left even if they should survive, will be left to die. This sounds cruel, but the alternative, the document argues, is no better. “In case of a total saturation of resources, maintaining the criterion of ‘first come, first served’ would amount to a decision to exclude late-arriving patients from access to intensive care.”

In addition to age, doctors and nurses are also advised to take a patient’s overall state of health into account: “The presence of comorbidities needs to be carefully evaluated.” This is in part because early studies of the virus seem to suggest that patients with serious preexisting health conditions are significantly more likely to die. But it is also because patients in a worse state of overall health could require a greater share of scarce resources to survive: “What might be a relatively short treatment course in healthier people could be longer and more resource-consuming in the case of older or more fragile patients.”

These guidelines apply even to patients who require intensive care for reasons other than the coronavirus, because they too make demands on the same scarce medical resources. As the document clarifies, “These criteria apply to all patients in intensive care, not just those infected with CoVid-19.”

This is the essence of rationing health care, and for everyone since the guidelines apply even to people not infected or possibly infected by the coronavirus.

The irony is that the guidelines are called “distributive justice.” But there’s no justice when treatment decisions are based on who is considered too old or too ill. Every human being has a right to life and deserves medical care and treatment regardless of their age or disability. Governments and the private sector need to step up and do everything possible to ensure no patient gets left behind.

I don’t know how drs can decide ‘you will live’ and ‘you will die’.

It is called 'Triage'. Triage is important in disaster situations when the number of patients greatly exceeds the availability of medical personnel. Combat, or large capacity vehicle crashes in remote areas can make triage necessary.

"early 18th century (in the sense ‘the action of sorting items according to quality’): from French, from trier ‘separate out’. The current sense dates from the 1930s, from the military system of assessing the wounded on the battlefield."

not a question mark in the MSM about the choice of Zeke Emanuel:

11 Mar: NBC: Biden campaign forms coronavirus advisory committee
by Adam Edelman
Joe Biden’s presidential campaign has formed a public health advisory committee to assist it with responding to the rapidly spreading coronavirus.
In a statement, the Biden campaign said it formed the body “to provide science-based, expert advice regarding steps the campaign should take to minimize health risks for the candidate, staff, and supporters.”...
The campaign said the committee would consist of six members — all doctors or former government officials — including Dr. Zeke Emanuel, a noted oncologist, the vice provost of global initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania and the brother of former Obama chief of staff, Rahm Emanual...
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/live-blog/coronavirus-updates-live-u-s-cases-top-1-000-spread-n1155241/ncrd1155836

yet Zeke is a most unsuitable choice for Biden, whose mental health is being questioned; and unsuitable for dealing with a virus that is more virulent when it comes to the elderly. why hasn’t the MSM referenced the following?

Oct 2014: TheAtlantic: Why I Hope to Die at 75
An argument that society and families — and you — will be better off if nature takes its course swiftly and promptly
Story by Ezekiel J. Emanuel
But here is a simple truth that many of us seem to resist: living too long is also a loss...
For many reasons, 75 is a pretty good age to aim to stop...
The situation becomes of even greater concern when we confront the most dreadful of all possibilities: living with dementia and other acquired mental disabilities...

What about simple stuff? Flu shots are out. Certainly if there were to be a flu pandemic, a younger person who has yet to live a complete life ought to get the vaccine or any antiviral drugs. A big challenge is antibiotics for pneumonia or skin and urinary infections. Antibiotics are cheap and largely effective in curing infections. It is really hard for us to say no. Indeed, even people who are sure they don’t want life-extending treatments find it hard to refuse antibiotics. But, as Osler reminds us, unlike the decays associated with chronic conditions, death from these infections is quick and relatively painless. So, no to antibiotics.

Obviously, a do-not-resuscitate order and a complete advance directive indicating no ventilators, dialysis, surgery, antibiotics, or any other medication—nothing except palliative care even if I am conscious but not mentally competent—have been written and recorded. In short, no life-sustaining interventions. I will die when whatever comes first takes me...
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/10/why-i-hope-to-die-at-75/379329/

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