By Ludovica De Panfilis, Silvia Tanzi and Massimo Costantini. The world continues to face the COVID-19 outbreak. It has radically affected health care organizations, care approaches, clinical and ethical choices, the perception of death and dying process, and people’s daily lives. Italy is the first and one of the most affected countries in Europe. The […]
Month: April 2020
What the virtues have to offer in the midst of COVID-19
By Julian C. Hughes. Now more than ever, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we need the virtues and the insights that virtue ethics afford us. We have all read or heard the dilemma: there is a shortage of intensive care staff or beds so that triage must take place and doctors are placed […]
COVID-19: ‘Contagion to this world’ and the demand for ethical research
By Julian C. Hughes and Julian Sheather. COVID-19 has indeed, to quote Hamlet, brought, ‘Contagion to this world’. Less than a month after it was first reported, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics (NCoB) issued its report, Research in Global Health Emergencies: Ethical Issues. In its discussion of the ethical issues raised by global health emergencies, […]
Should we all be wearing masks? A community midwife’s view.
by Laura Tugores & Octavia Wiseman During the Covid19 pandemic midwives and other front-line workers challenged PHE’s guidelines which said that Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) was not needed when caring for asymptomatic patients. In this blog post, two community midwives talk about what this was like for them. Now that guidance has finally been changed […]
Covid-19, Patents & Healthcare: The Need for A (Bio)ethics Space within Patent Law
By Aisling McMahon. Covid-19 was declared a pandemic on 12th March 2020 and by 9th April had claimed 81,580 lives. Covid-19 has also brought to stark reality broader inequalities and impediments in the delivery of healthcare, including the potential impacts of patents. Patents are intellectual property rights which allow the patent holder to stop others […]
Self care, public health messaging and moral responsibilities during a global health emergency – a patient perspective
Blog by Noirin O’Neill As a patient and a person who has survived a life – threatening hemorrhaging form of leukemia in 2004 at 30 years of age, I care deeply about patient involvement, patient empowerment and self-care. I know that self- care will help me as a patient to live better with my health […]
Nursing and Post Pandemic Health Challenges
By Roberta Heale, Associate Editor EBN, @robertaheale @EBNursingBMJ This International Year of the Nurse and Midwife has tested us like never before. Although the world has been waiting for a pandemic, and there have been scares (SARS, MERS, Ebola), here we are with COVID 19. Nurses the world over have packed away their celebratory banners […]
Better Access for the Disabled–Insights from the COVID 19 Pandemic
Blog by Aneesh Basheer Much of the response to the COVID 19 pandemic from governments, health authorities and volunteer organizations has neglected people with disabilities. While this is generally true during concerted response to any sort of disasters, the current COVID 19 situation offers particular insights into the intrinsic ableism of our society while also […]
New UK Government guidelines on medical abortion during the COVID-19 emergency
By Ilaria Bertini The entire world is facing one of the greatest challenges of our time: the COVID-19 pandemic. Less than two weeks ago, the UK Government announced some of the strictest measures in its history to limit the rising number of infections in the population. The National Health Service (NHS) has been forced to […]
Coronavirus and our duty to fight fake news: 10 simple rules
By David Shaw Arsonists in the UK have attacked at least 40 mobile phone masts in recent weeks because they believe that they spread coronavirus. This sounds ridiculous, but it is deadly serious. The latest fire affected the mast at the new Nightingale hospital built for virus patients in Birmingham, putting important communication channels at […]