Why not just euthanize people once they hit 85? It’s gotta be good for the environment to boot...
I haven’t seen the original report, but it seems to be these were their recommendations in a “worst case scenario” where there was not enough vaccine and only a limited ability to treat people who contract the disease. It’s tough, but if a doctor has to choose between using the last of her resources to save a 15 year old and a 90 year old, who should she save?
-ccm
Triage, a French word, go figure.
When you do not have the resources to treat everyone, you pick out the ones that will survive with no treatment and those who will likely not survive with treatment.
If you are still short on resources, then the choices get much tougher.
Because government views citizens as resources, it only makes sense that those advocating for government-run health care would start to contemplate the usefulness of an old person.
I bet no one in that task force is anywhere near 85yrs old.
The problem with this type of thing is that once we accept this for a pandemic every couple of years the catastrophe bar is lowered until we're talking about involuntary euthanasia and other horrors. I don't blame folks who are skeptical.
Who is on this task force, what are their names, and where do they live?
For some reason I doubt we will find out.
86 year olds can pull a trigger.
This is called ‘Triage’. Look it up sometime, because the triage nurse in every Emerg in America makes these decisions on a daily basis.
The article is bogus because the premise is flawed.
Asking whether “Should doctors let people over 85 die in a pandemic” misstates reality. It attributes powers to doctors that doctors do not have. It is a little like saying “Should President Bush let another hurricane hit New Orleans?”
Doctors can cure SOME people of SOME diseases. Doctors DO NOT hold the power of life or death over everyone.
In a pandemic, many people over 85 are going to die, and not because doctors “let them die”, but because the disease is going to kill them. Generally speaking, doctors have no “magic pill”, or “miracle power” to avoid that result. What Doctors do have are limited powers to save SOME people. Those powers should be used where they are likely to do some good. It benefits no one if the doctors apply those limited resources in a futile effort to save people who are going to die no matter what the doctor does, while people who could be aided by the doctors’ attentions die for want of that attention.
Distributing resources evenly among victims, with no consideration given to the likelihood of success makes no more sense than the rationale that when we screen passsengers at airports, we must distrubute the resources equally to inspect young Muslim men and little Jewish grandmothers.
In the flu epidemic of 1918, army doctors, who were for the most part dealing with young, fit, otherwise healthy men — so the question of elderly, mentally ill, etc., did not come up — divided those who had the flu into three categories — those who were surely going to pull through, those who were surely going to die, and those who might go either way. The doctors concentrated on the third group, and ignored the other two. I find no moral argument why those limited resources should be allocated differently.
The issue is, how many can we keep alive.
Everybody else dies on their own. It's not a question of "letting".
“Should we let people older than 85 die in a pandemic?”
Well, that, or a Pinto.
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
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It is now legal to do away with the merely inconvenient.
Baby Boomers are on the edge of reaping a terrible harvest as their children turn on them like wolves.
"Dad would not have wanted to live this way.......besides I need that new BMW"
I think medical decisions need to be made on a case by case basis. It should not be a one size fits all deal.
There are legitimate reasons to not provide extraordinary care in some cases. But to say all persons over 85 fall into that category is wrong.
It’s an apt and simple decision to make in a worst case scenario.
Do you REALLY treat someone that you know full well is going to die today if that means someone else doesn’t get the treatment? Very simple triage that sucks to hear about but is necessary..........in a worse case scenario.
That snarky comment being said, I think that this particular study just gave voice to a hard reality that would be faced down in the event of a major epidemic (major, at least as I'd define it, as consisting of deaths in the millions): When there's not enough treatment to go around, the patients need to be triaged.
I *do* think that by discussing this topic, it lets the camel's nose in the tent. If it's acceptable in a major epidemic, what about a "minor" one? What about a "Health Crisis? Diabetes? And so on....
I'm all for planning, but some things just need to be tackled on an ad-hoc basis if they arise.