Texas hospital forced to set up 'death panel' as Covid-19 ca

Strutz @ Mon Jul 27, 2020 6:21 pm

It wouldn't shock me if this type of issue is happening in countless hospitals, not only in the USA, but other countries as well that we just don't hear about.

I can't imagine the horror in having to make decisions like this.

BeaverFever @ Mon Jul 27, 2020 6:23 pm

Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:

Allow me to point out that, like your post said it's ONE HOSPITAL that's being forced into setting up a "death panel" not the entire state. But there's a few things that have been left out of the story.

$1:

KEY FACTS
Starr County Memorial Hospital is the only hospital serving the county on the Texas border with Mexico, which serves a large Hispanic population and has seen its Covid-19 cases balloon from 8 to 17 and then to 29 after Texas reopened its economy beginning in May following coronavirus shutdowns, becoming one of the first states to do so.

Hospital President Jose Vasquez, in a virtual online call with journalists, a recording of which was reviewed by Forbes, said the hospital has been given extra personnel from the state and federal governments but still has insufficient resources, and is “establishing an ethics committee as well as a triage committee that are going to be in charge of reviewing each one of these cases that need hospitalization.”

He said if a patient, particularly someone with a significant underlying medical condition, needs “mechanical ventilation to survive we have to start making a triage evaluation and [determine] who has a better chance to use, in a beneficial way, all of the resources versus who is a patient that because of chronic medical illness does not have the chance to survive.”

Vasquez’s comments, reported earlier by the Border Report, were met with shock and alarm on social media and called to mind the false suggestion by former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin that the Affordable Care Act, sometimes called Obama Care, would include“death panels” that would be making life or death decisions.

Vasquez said some badly ill Covid-19 patients have been transferred to hospitals outside of the county, and in some cases outside of the state, a pattern he said is not sustainable and could lead to “those patients who most certainly do not have any hope of improving going ...thousands of miles away dying alone in a hospital.”

Vasquez, other members of the hospital board, hospital administration and the Texas Department of State Health Services could not be reached for comment by Forbes Friday.

“We need to maximize the resources that we have been given, those are not unlimited resources, [and] use the scarce resources on who has a better chance of survival.”

Jose Vasquez, president of Starr County Memorial Hospital

https://www.forbes.com/sites/karenrobin ... 55af0e405b

So explain again how this is the Federal and State Gov'ts fault especially since the same thing has been happening de facto all over the country with the only difference being that nobody politicised it?

$1:

Amid growing fears that the United States could face a shortage of ventilators for coronavirus patients, state officials and hospitals are quietly preparing to make excruciating decisions about how they would ration lifesaving care.

The plans may not be necessary, as officials are scrambling to secure more ventilators, which can make the difference between life and death for coronavirus patients in critical condition who are struggling to breathe. Social distancing and other mitigation efforts to slow the virus' spread could prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed. But hospitals are already huddling with state health officials to hammer out their policies to determine which coronavirus patients would get ventilators if they run short — essentially deciding whose lives to save first.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-c ... e-n1162721

If that isn't a death panel I don't know what is.

You seem to have answered all your own questions,no?

xerxes @ Mon Jul 27, 2020 6:42 pm

Strutz Strutz:

Yeah it’s awful, but that’s the job. My SO is a nurse and every year the Airshow is on they have to assess every patient which patients need to stay and which could be released in case there is a major disaster (like what happened in Rammstein, Germany in 1988) and they have to take in mass casualties.

BeaverFever @ Tue Jul 28, 2020 7:24 am

Triage in a mass-casualty disaster is different though.

fifeboy @ Tue Jul 28, 2020 7:44 am

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Who is responsible for the epic mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic that’s been killing thousands across Texas and the other red states and overwhelming small local hospitals in poor rural areas that rely on stingy conservative governments for resources?
You owe me 5

+5 if I could! Catch you later.

Sunnyways @ Tue Jul 28, 2020 8:06 am

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Triage in a mass-casualty disaster is different though.

It is different but the acute shortage of beds and resources is similar. If things get bad enough, choices between patients will have to be made. I saw an elderly UK doctor saying he wants home care for himself if he gets COVID because he believes younger patients should have the beds.

BartSimpson @ Tue Jul 28, 2020 9:15 am

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Triage in a mass-casualty disaster is different though.

Triage should always run by the same criteria.

It's a function of capacity, survivability, and transport capacity.

You treat the people who are likely to survive, you comfort the people who can't survive, and you transport everyone who can handle transport.

And if your capacity is exceeded in all three categories you do the best you can for the people you can help the most.

Edit: And try not to kill yourself when you have to come to grips with the decisions you made.

Zipperfish @ Tue Jul 28, 2020 9:23 am

$1:

So explain again how this is the Federal and State Gov'ts fault especially since the same thing has been happening de facto all over the country with the only difference being that nobody politicised it?

If there's one thing I've noticed it's that nobody has politicized coronavirus. /sarcasm

bootlegga @ Tue Jul 28, 2020 11:35 am

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Remember when Republican scumbags fabricated their totally made up lie that Obama was going to force death panels on America as part of Obamacare?

Turns out its Republicans who are forcing Americans to resort to death panels thanks to their epic incompetence and mismanagement of the coronavirus

$1:

A surge in coronavirus cases in rural Texas has forced one hospital to set up “death panels” to decide which patients it can save and which ones will be sent home to die.

Doctors at Starr County Memorial Hospital, the only hospital in Starr County, have been issued with critical care guidelines to decide which Covid-19 patients it will treat and which ones will be sent home because they are likely to die. The committee is being formed to alleviate the hospital’s limited medical resources so doctors can focus on patients with higher survival rates.

I wonder where the Republican Vice Presidential candidate who made that phrase famous in 2008 is hiding right now. :lol:

If you look at the worst hit states over the past month or so, the majority of them are Red states with either GOP governors or GOP dominated legislatures/senates, which stands to reason because many of them are more focused on re-opening the economy than on people's lives.

BartSimpson @ Tue Jul 28, 2020 1:51 pm

bootlegga bootlegga:

I wonder where the Republican Vice Presidential candidate who made that phrase famous in 2008 is hiding right now. :lol:

Sarah Palin is not hiding anywhere. She just finalized her divorce like two weeks ago and is hosting a private fundraiser for a pro-Trump PAC this coming weekend.

I'll be sure to say 'hi' for you! [B-o]