‘Triage officers’ would decide who gets care and who doesn’t if COVID-19 crushes L.A. hospitals

LA Times ^ | 01/08/2021 | AMES RAINEY, SOUMYA KARLAMANGLA, JACK DOLAN

[BenLurkin]

The crisis designation would empower the newly named triage officers — usually critical care and emergency room doctors — to decide which patients at county hospitals would get access to resources such as ventilators, respiratory therapists and critical care nurses when they become too scarce to be provided to every patient.

Hospitals outside the county system will have to decide on their own whether to invoke similar urgency measures, though state officials told them last week that they should have triage plans ready.

Inside many overflowing Southern California hospitals, a form of undeclared rationing appears already to be taking place. Ambulances carrying COVID patients have been diverted from overtaxed medical centers. Critically ill patients sometimes wait days to get intensive care beds.

California Department of Public Health and some hospital systems recommend reliance on clinical scoring systems that evaluate patients’ organ functions, generating numerical scores meant to indicate an individual’s survival chances.

County health leaders...have directed triage officers to use a broader “principle-based approach” that seeks to shift care away from patients judged to be terminal to patients judged to have the best chance of survival.

The county triage document acknowledged that it did not provide a concise set of instructions for triage officers that would cover “every possible circumstance that might arise in the context of an overwhelming surge of demand.”

The county’s policy is most clear on what it does not allow: discrimination against individuals based on their identity. The guidelines note that it is unethical and illegal to deny care to individuals based on their religion, race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, immigration status or disability.

The triage officers are supposed to focus, instead, on each individual’s chance of surviving COVID-19 or other ailments.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I guess they could have made and stashed billions of doses, hired tens of thousands of new people to give the shots and done it all one day in June. That would have avoided prioritization and triage.

[RaceBannon]

Cuomo said that you can be rounded up if you MIGHT have covid, watch this!
https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1347619118137159682/vid/720x720/q73U_3CCbiLXlZD6.mp4

[wildcard_redneck]

"I guess they could have made and stashed billions of doses, hired tens of thousands of new people to give the shots and done it all one day in June. That would have avoided prioritization and triage."

They are not talking about vaccines here. They are talking about letting people die because they do not have enough oxygen gas, beds, and ventilators which is inexcusable 9 months into this outbreak.

And many of the so-called COVID cases are actually the flu.

[Socon-Econ]

The fear mongers have unfettered ability to invent data. Needed: (1) an audit of the hospital capacity claims; and (2) a report on changes in admission standards for like symptoms from before the hoaxademic started.

[MarMema]

I am tested weekly at work and it takes 15 minutes. Flu tests are similar. The ER knows what they’re doing and they are testing.

Its not flu.

[lightman]

SOP in any mass casualty event.

Finite resources must be allocated to the patients where those resources can do the most good.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

“not enough oxygen gas, beds, and ventilators”

I apologize. You are absolutely right. There’s no excuse for not having ramped up ICU space, beds, personnel, and all the consumables.

[socalgop]

It’s mostly a personnel issue. There are only so many ER docs or RTa you can find.

[elbook]

.

The new Commissars.

This is Biden’s America People ....

.

[tbw2]

Professor gets heat after saying ‘whiter’ elderly should wait for vaccine
https://nypost.com/2020/12/19/professor-gets-heat-after-saying-whiter-elderly-should-wait-for-vaccine

German Geneticist Says People Who Refuse COVID Vaccine Should be Denied Medical Treatment
https://summit.news/2020/12/22/german-geneticist-says-people-who-refuse-covid-vaccine-should-be-denied-medical-treatment/

[tbw2]

Professor gets heat after saying ‘whiter’ elderly should wait for vaccine
https://nypost.com/2020/12/19/professor-gets-heat-after-saying-whiter-elderly-should-wait-for-vaccine

German Geneticist Says People Who Refuse COVID Vaccine Should be Denied Medical Treatment
https://summit.news/2020/12/22/german-geneticist-says-people-who-refuse-covid-vaccine-should-be-denied-medical-treatment/