Under new guidelines issued to doctors in UK, elderly coronavirus patients with a low chance of survival could be taken off ventilators so they can be used for younger and healthier patients.
The advice on prioritizing intensive care treatment has been released by the British Medical Association.
According to the guidelines, this will ‘inevitably be indirectly discriminatory against both the elderly and those with long-term health conditions.’
It also added that it may be needed to deny the most unwell patients potentially life-saving treatment.
The doctors’ union said the new guidelines would be unlawful but ‘relevant factors’ to be considered if a patient should receive intensive care include their underlying health condition and age.
It says: “Some of the most unwell patients may be denied access to treatment such as intensive care or artificial ventilation.
“This will inevitably be indirectly discriminatory against both the elderly and those with long-term health conditions relevant to their ability to benefit quickly, with the latter being denied access to life-saving treatment as a result of their pre-existing health problems.”
It continued: “A simple ‘age cut-off’ policy would be unlawful as it would constitute direct age discrimination.
“A healthy 75-year-old cannot lawfully be denied access to treatment on the basis of age. However, older patients with severe respiratory failure secondary to COVID-19 may have a very high chance of dying despite intensive care, and consequently have a lower priority for admission to intensive care.”
The Alzheimer’s Society also stated that the ‘discriminatory’ system could prevent people with dementia receiving treatment even if they could recover from the deadly virus.
One internet user commented: “How terrible to put doctors in that position that they have to choose who is worthy of living and who is not, especially as they choose their career because they want to save lives.”
Another wrote: “Hope not but might come to the point when the economy becomes so depressed that they will have to sacrifice us oldies so the country can survive.”
A third added: “In the future, when this virus hopefully subsides, there will be a lot of families filing lawsuits against these decisions.”
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