'As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, deciding who to save is no longer a hypothetical exercise in a medical ethics textbook.'
article published Saturday, “guidance endorsed and distributed by the Washington State Health Department ... suggested that triage teams under crisis conditions should consider transferring patients out of the hospital or to palliative care if their baseline functioning was marked by ‘loss of reserves in energy, physical ability, cognition and general health.
Chillingly, this pandemic is bringing into sharp focus the fact that millions of disabled people on this planet have always lived in the position of being one crisis away from those with power determining their lives are not worth saving. Everything I read about medical facilities grappling with what to do if they reach capacity seems to make clear what disabled people have recognized all along: We’re all too often seen as the clutter in the way of cleaning up the world.
And what happens once we do finally rid the world of this particular mess? Who of the disability community will have met the fate of being remembered as someone sacrificed to save others? And for the disabled people who survive, are we simply supposed to continue on with the knowledge that next time, it might be our turn to be sacrificed? Or will society take this as a real opportunity to learn how to prepare for the future so we won’t have to ask the impossibly difficult question of who...
Singapore Latest News, Singapore Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Blood Type May Affect COVID-19 RiskCoronavirus news -- A person's blood type may affect their risk for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, researchers report.
Read more »
The Bachelor’s Colton Underwood Says 'It’s Still Hard to Breathe' as He Recovers from Coronavirus'I'm taking the home isolation very seriously,' says Colton Underwood, who tested positive for the coronavirus
Read more »
Against Coronavirus, the Fed’s Banking Stress Test Doesn’t Look So BadBankers wonder if regulatory stress tests are even worth it this year as the coronavirus pandemic decimates the economy
Read more »
Guests at Trump National Golf Club disco party get coronavirusCoronavirus: Guests at Trump National Golf Club disco party get coronavirus, including politicians
Read more »
Iran warns of second wave of coronavirusIran may face a second wave of the coronavirus outbreak, government spokesman Al...
Read more »