By Jonathan Michaels When I wrote about the potential for injustices to arise in evidence-based healthcare policy, the COVID-19 pandemic had not begun. Since then, numerous government agencies and academic bodies have rapidly produced policy, claiming legitimacy because it is “evidence-based” or “follows the science”. However, science cannot determine policy, and the failure to distinguish […]
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A Crisis in Care: Pandemics and Patients in Care Homes
By Ayesha Ahmad As a philosopher by training, specialising in ethics and working in global health, I research vulnerability in complex conflicts, humanitarian crises and disasters in contexts besieged by silencing and marginalisation. When the COVID-19 outbreak began, my priority was the impact of the public health burden on weak and fragile systems in my […]
Maximizing outcomes in triage of critical care resources—is there a consensus?
By Lynette Reid My university told us to work from home in mid-March; public health asked us to limit shopping and travel—but to get outdoors for exercise—soon after. I can’t complain. I have secure employment; my partner and I live outside the city in a fishing village with protected wilderness all around. It was like […]
The Cost of Society: Considering Social Distancing Beyond COVID-19 to Save Lives
By Michael J. Rigby The COVID-19 pandemic poses a serious challenge to our existing healthcare infrastructure. Rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2 can easily overwhelm healthcare capacity, which can exceed the number of intensive care unit beds and ventilators. Once this threshold is surpassed, any serious yet treatable disease becomes life-threatening. Without a vaccine or other preventive […]
How should non-life-saving surgery be rationed?
Helen Turnham, Guy Thorburn and Dominic Wilkinson. The COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated a total shut down of elective surgery within the NHS. In the forthcoming months there will be re-initiation of elective surgery but at significantly reduced capacity. The combination of pre-existing backlog, a protracted period of no surgery and an anticipated future period of […]
Pandemic preparedness: Fail to prepare, prepare to fail
By Lorcan O’Byrne. As students cannot match the knowledge, skills and clinical experience of a qualified doctor, one might then contend that their involvement in the care of a patient with COVID-19 would primarily be for the students’ educational benefit, rather than for the provision of meaningful healthcare. Further, the COVID-19 pandemic is necessitating that […]
Discounts for doctors. Gratitude and desert in a pandemic
By Catriona Boyd and Joshua Parker. Displays of gratitude towards healthcare workers have risen throughout the pandemic. Many businesses have offered free or discounted products and services. Morrisons, for example, announced a 10% discount for all NHS workers to “support them” during the COVID-19 pandemic; and they are by no means exceptional. This isn’t limited […]
Evidence-based injustices
By Jonathan Michaels. In healthcare, and many other areas of endeavour, policy and guidance claims legitimacy on the basis that it is evidence-based and follows the best scientific advice. Expert advisory committees collect, consider and interpret extensive, and often complex, scientific evidence. As we have seen in the diverse responses to Covid-19, evidence and expertise […]
Coronavirus and lost life: three million years
By David Shaw Everyone knows that older people are at greater risk of dying if infected with coronavirus. Some have even suggested that most people dying of the virus would have died this year or next year anyway because of their age and frailty. But this is not true. In fact, the typical person who […]
Can COVID-19 re-invigorate ethics?
By Louise Campbell The COVID-19 pandemic has catapulted ethics into the spotlight. Questions previously deliberated about by small numbers of people interested in or affected by particular issues are now being posed with an unprecedented urgency right across the public domain. One of the interesting facets of this development is the way in which the […]