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Ethical allocation of scarce health care resources in the context of the COVID-19 crisis.
- Source :
-
Medwave [Medwave] 2020 Jun 16; Vol. 20 (5), pp. e7935. Date of Electronic Publication: 2020 Jun 16. - Publication Year :
- 2020
-
Abstract
- The current COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to overwhelm the capacity of hospitals and Intensive Care Units in Chile and Latin America. Thus local authorities have an ethical obligation to be prepared by implementing pertinent measures to prevent a situation of rationing of scarce healthcare resources, and by defining ethically acceptable and socially legitimate criteria for the allocation of these resources. This paper responds to recent ethical guidelines issued by a Chilean academic institution and discusses the main moral principles for the ethical foundations of criteria for rationing during the present crisis. It argues that under exceptional circumstances such as the current pandemic, the traditional patient-centered morality of medicine needs to be balanced with ethical principles formulated from a public health perspective, including the principles of social utility, social justice and equity, among others. The paper concludes with some recommendations regarding how to reach an agreement about rationing criteria and about their implementation in clinical practice.
- Subjects :
- COVID-19
Chile
Coronavirus Infections epidemiology
Guidelines as Topic
Hospitals ethics
Hospitals statistics & numerical data
Humans
Intensive Care Units ethics
Intensive Care Units statistics & numerical data
Latin America
Pandemics
Pneumonia, Viral epidemiology
Social Justice
Coronavirus Infections therapy
Health Care Rationing ethics
Pneumonia, Viral therapy
Public Health ethics
Surge Capacity statistics & numerical data
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- Spanish; Castilian; English
- ISSN :
- 0717-6384
- Volume :
- 20
- Issue :
- 5
- Database :
- MEDLINE
- Journal :
- Medwave
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 32544150
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.5867/medwave.2020.05.7935