Before any talk of the government "rationing" health care with the latest reform proposals, South Carolina is leading the charge in rationing. A Republican state, mind you.
"We found (we) had more work to do, DHEC does, particularly in dealing with scarcity of medical resources in a pandemic," said Dr. Phil Schneider, an emeritus bioethics professor at CCU and co-chair of the SC Pandemic Influenza Ethics Task Force.
"There's no point in putting treatment into a patient who will not benefit from it. Tough thing to say, but that's what we're going to be faced with in a full-fledged pandemic," Schneider said.
The Republican state would decide who gets care and who does not in a severe pandemic. How about that. In other words, the very same people who scare the elderly with what Democratic leaders "would" do has already discussed real plans to ration health care.
But it gets specific... It's not the government who would do the deciding.
"The doctors will have to decide who the sickest people are and who are the people who have the best chance to survive," Schneider said.
Really... So, does that mean doctors are the "death panels" now? Why?
A key component of battling influenza is ventilators. As of June, there were 1,284 ventilators in hospitals across the state, according to the task force.
WOW. And people still think health care reform doesn't need to happen. That's a shame that so few of life-saving devices are present in this state, the state where Republicans want you to believe that Democratic lawmakers want to "pull the plug" on Grandma. Honestly, the GOP should tell those people we just don't have enough plugs to pull.
The rest of the story tells the horrid truth:
To determine who will receive critical care, specifically ventilators, the task force recommends hospitals implement the Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) System, which rates a patient's mortality risk.
Through a series of testing, the patient will be given a score between 0-24. The higher the score, generally higher than 11, the closer one is to death and less likely they'll receive critical care, Schneider said.
"If we have two patients, one whose SOFA score is 18 (who's) 99% likely to die with whatever treatment they have, ventilator or not ... and a patient with a SOFA score of 4 who is very likely to survive if they can get the treatment with the ventilator, then the patient with the lower score will get the ventilator," Schneider explained.
The one who is refused the ventilator will be given palliative care where the treatment is focused on making "end of life" easier -- much like a hospice program.
So, the truth is right in front of you. It depends whether or not you want to ignore it. Not only will doctors decide your fate, but you'll have to score on a test to get treatment.
"This is necessary. It's fair. It's evidence-based. It's not pleasant, but it's something our society has to cope with."
Schneider said the state's hospital and medical associations have endorsed the plan, and they hope the nursing association will follow suit.
...
The 76-page DHEC study
Comments are closed on this story.