Please ignore the sensational headline but the article connects to many discussions that relate issues around ethics and public policy. This is a real life application of a form of “trolley problem” playing out in real life. This goes back to some of the choices faced by a hospital in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. When forced to make decisions about whose lives to save, how do we decide?
“The criteria for access to intensive therapy in cases of emergency must include age of less than 80 or a score on the Charlson comorbidity Index [which indicates how many other medical conditions the patient has] of less than 5.”
The ability of the patient to recover from resuscitation will also be considered.
One doctor said: “[Who lives and who dies] is decided by age and by the [patient’s] health conditions. This is how it is in a war.”
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