By G. Owen Schaefer and Angela Ballantyne Should you download an app that could notify you if you had been in contact with someone who contracted COVID-19? Such apps are already available in countries such as Israel, Singapore, and Australia, with other countries like the UK and US soon to follow. Here, we explain why […]
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Lack of leadership to limit “futile” end-of-life care leaves Canada hamstrung in COVID-19 pandemic
By Lucas Vivas and Travis Carpenter The COVID-19 pandemic has shed a light on many of the strengths and weaknesses of the world’s public health systems. In Canada, where the national health care system was stretched even before the expected COVID-19 surge, a conversation has begun about the need to direct health care resources to […]
Law and ethics in the time of COVID-19
By Neil Pickering In order to support its Alert Level 4 declaration, the New Zealand government has taken up extraordinary legal powers to control people’s lives. As Professor Andrew Geddis of the Otago University Faculty of Law is reported to have said: “These give the state extraordinary reach into our lives, and transfer extraordinary power […]
Should culpability or negligence of the patient affect triage decisions? A question the state needs to answer for healthcare professionals
By Nikunj Agarwal Triage decision and value judgments Value judgments about justice or fairness are neither easy nor conclusive. However, this does not prevent value judgments from being made on a daily basis. When a judge attempts to determine the culpability of an accused, the procedural and evidentiary rules assist her in making those value […]
Supreme Court rules on the first prosecution of a Dutch doctor since the euthanasia act
Eva C.A. Asscher and Suzanne van de Vathorst. On April 21st the Supreme Court passed judgement on the case of the first doctor to be prosecuted since the 2002 Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide (Review Procedures) Act. In September 2019 a Dutch nursing home doctor performing euthanasia on a patient with severe […]
A lesson from COVID-19: Persuasion can be a more powerful tool than mandates in improving vaccine uptake
By Jennifer O’Neill. Only months ago, it would have been hard to believe that the citizens of Western democracies would forsake their basic liberties. Yet, in recent weeks, the public have accepted that life as we know it is on hold for an undefined period of time and that during that time they cannot see […]
Is it ethical to forcibly withdraw ventilators from nursing home patients for reallocation to Covid-19 patients?
By: Andrew Peterson, Adrian M. Owen, Charles Weijer. In the race to save lives in the Covid-19 pandemic, we must not sacrifice those most vulnerable. Covid-19 kills not only by attacking the respiratory system, but also by attacking the health care system. Overwhelmed ICUs may not have enough ventilators for patients in respiratory distress. The […]
Withdrawing ventilators during the COVID-19 pandemic: When is it justified?
By Jeremy Davis. One of the most concerning aspects of our current crisis is the massive shortage of mechanical ventilators. Such scarcity has already led to rationing in some places; elsewhere, rationing will soon be unavoidable. This raises difficult ethical questions, perhaps the most central and urgent of which is: Which patients should we prioritize? […]
Be careful what you wish for: ICU is no panacea
By Angela Ballantyne, Wendy Rogers, Vikki Entwistle, Cindy Towns In current debates about allocation of scarce ICU resources, we suggest there is undue optimism about the ‘good’ of intensive care unit (ICU) access. Most critical COVID-19 patients who receive access to a ventilator will still die. The minority who survive will likely leave with significant […]
Consent in the time of COVID-19
By Helen Turnham, Michael Dunn, Guy Thornburn, Elaine Hill, Dominic Wilkinson Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, one widely discussed issue has been the diversion of medical systems to support patients with acute COVID-19 disease. This diversion inevitably reduces availability of routine and urgent treatments for non-COVID-related illness. Patients with acute surgical emergencies such […]