course material

1. MEDA205 Medical Law And Ethics
Answer:
Article Name
Ethical dilemmas in the age of coronavirus: Whose lives should we save?
Article Summary
This piece of news focuses on the issue based on the number of cases of coronavirus rises
and hospitals became overburdened, nurses, critical-care physicians, and medical
administrators throughout the United States of America are prepared for a difficult ethical
choice. It is hard to breathe in a hospital triage tent jammed with three patients: a diabetic
teen, his 25-year-old mother, along with a 75-year-old grand father. There is just one
remaining ventilator. It's a mystery.
It also highlights that as coronavirus cases rise and the circumstances wherein the hospitals
grow overburdened, care physicians, nurses, and other medical authorities throughout the
USA are prepared for ethical dilemmas like these (Jarvie, 2020).
As a result, emergency department doctors work on the egalitarian principles, providing
first-come, first-served critical treatment on the idea that everyone’s life is equally
important and precious. In times of crisis, however, the approach becomes much more
utilitarian. Doctors have to make difficult decisions when supplies are limited during
conflicts and natural catastrophes.
For the first time in human civilization, "social mitigation measures and pandemic
management" have been put to the test, according to Howard Markel, a history professor at
the University of Michigan. As a result of the lack of modern medical technology, historic
epidemics such as the Black Death aren't taken into account. Basically, we are "flying by the
seat of our trousers."
There are less than 100,000 critical care beds in the United States. As per the study by the
Johns Hopkins University Centre for Health Security, a mild outbreak would need 200,000
people, while a pandemic on the scale of the 1918 Spanish flu would require 2.9 million.

2. In addition, several of the experts indicated that someone with a long future life expectancy
may provide advantage more than a person who has already lived his life. A third
consideration is whether or not you are a hospital employee with the potential to save more
lives.
The other side of the argument is that those trying to protect people life, like the respiratory
therapists or ICU clinicians, do deserve greater protection, since they are required to return
to the battle and avoid other fatalities down the road to have higher priority (Jarvie, 2020).
The allocation of scarce resources in healthcare has long been a topic of ethical debate. Prior
to putting physicians in the position of deciding who survives and who dies, hospitals and
governments should focus on improving healthcare efficiency in the United States,
according to a panel of experts.
Certain surgical procedures may be postponed, transportation shared, physicians allowed
to practise across state boundaries in an emergency, treatment expenses waived, and
military and veteran hospitals allowed to take on civilian patients in order to free up beds.
That's why anybody who believes firmly that they would want to sacrifice themselves in
regard to a younger individual, or one with less health difficulties, might change their their
methods of healthcare sooner before it gets too late (Jarvie, 2020).
As a result, it has been discovered that this is one of the issues that hasn't been addressed
yet and must be prioritised in an efficient manner.
Article Link: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-19/ethical-dilemmas-
in-the-age-of-coronavirus-whose-lives-should-we-save
Reference
Jarvie, J., 2020. Ethical dilemmas in the age of coronavirus: Whose lives should we save?.
[online] Los Angeles Times. Available at: [Accessed 19 March 2020].