Opinion: If it comes to rationing, I shouldn’t have to be the one deciding who should live and who should die
Medical school didn’t teach me how to decide which of my patients should live and which should die if it becomes rationing of medical equipment or treatment becomes necessary. But I’ve spent most of my time recently planning for the possibility that my colleagues and I may need to make precisely that decision.
Reports have emerged from Italy about doctors choosing who would receive lifesaving medical care and who would not. New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, pleaded this week for 30,000 ventilators, three times the 10,000 ventilators currently available. As I write this, there are more than 80,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the United States. If the number of people with severe cases outstrips the number of ventilators, will doctors decide who gets one?
