Louisiana doctors working on 'crisis standards' for when medical system is overwhelmed | New Orleans Health and Fitness - New Orleans Health News & Information - NOLA.com: "Louisiana health professionals are developing guidelines that specify which patients would get access to lifesaving treatments — and which wouldn’t — during a severe pandemic, bioterrorist attack or natural disaster that overwhelms the medical system.
Alan Levine.JPGEliot Kamenitz/The Times-PicayuneAlan LevineAround two dozen hospital leaders, health professionals and ethicists in Baton Rouge began crafting the guidelines last summer after the emergence of the H1N1 flu, also known as the swine flu. In November, the state’s Department of Health and Hospitals sent an early draft to representatives in Louisiana’s nine public health regions asking them to reach out to hospitals and the medical community for feedback.
The draft identifies several categories of patients — including those with incurable metastatic cancer with less than six months life expectancy and those with a very low predicted survival from extensive burns — who would not be admitted to hospitals when beds and ventilators are no longer available. Instead, the draft guidelines call for patients in these categories to be offered care for pain and discomfort at home or in other facilities.
The draft also calls for doctors to take off life support patients thought to have a higher risk of dying to make way for others with a better prognosis if there are not enough intensive care resources to go around. Those patients would also receive care for their pain."
No comments:
Post a Comment
Spamming will be removed.
Due to spamming. Comments need to be moderated. Your post will appear after moderated regardless of your views as long as they are not abusive in nature. Consistent abusive posters will not be viewed but deleted.
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.