Months into the pandemic, the novel coronavirus is still largely an unknown—“very perplexing,” says one infectious disease specialist, while another predicts the death toll “could easily be 1 million.”
When did physicians and other health care workers become expendable pawns? When did they become unwitting participants in corona roulette?
Ethicists like me have studied rationing for decades. In a few days, our guidelines will be needed. Rationing occurs in the United States. Anyone on a waiting list for a kidney or liver transplant knows this.
Today, I put my role of doctor above my role of mom. Today, my physician husband and I made the difficult decision to send our daughter to live with my in-laws for the foreseeable future as we prepare to battle coronavirus in New York City.
With the coronavirus still spreading and cases of COVID-19 still mounting, mechanical ventilators are in notoriously short supply. That has physicians scrambling to find alternatives for patients so weakened by the respiratory disease that they can no longer breathe without assistance.
The most concerning thing on physicians’ minds right now is the coronavirus pandemic. Unfortunately, worrying about this new and deadly virus doesn’t eliminate all the other major concerns on doctors’ minds. Those problems—from prior authorizations and certification requirements to declining reimbursements and increasing workloads—haven’t gone anywhere.
Not in hospitals. Not in the clinics. Not spending an hour suturing a laceration, so the resident is available to help others. Not reminding the team that it’s the day, and we should consider stopping the antibiotics.
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