How realistic is it to be passing laws specifying who to put down first in emergencies?
I assume that they do that because, if they don't, hospitals will have to use their own criteria, perhaps arbitrary or ad hoc criteria. Some would send flu patients home and others would make beds for them by releasing either terminal patients or some other category or maybe just people the hospital folks don't like. It may also be that the legislators just want control or it may be that a patchwork of different criteria would be problematic. Another reason might be for liability purposes so that hospital personnel can't be charged criminally when people sicken and maybe die, as they will whatever criteria are used. Regardless, emergency people are expected in our society to have contingency plans at some level. It's hard to see how you can find fault with the concept even if you find fault with the governmental level at which it might be done.
As for putting people down, you keep trotting that out but, of course, that's not what this is about any more than it was the myriad other times you brought it up.
the government can always declare an emergency anytime.
It's my understanding that the emergency in question is having too few hospital beds available, not some arbitrary emergency. It boggles my mind that you think that there are psychopaths running hospitals just waiting for some excuse to mass murder.
We don't have a shortage of beds and are exceedingly unlikely to have one.
If we don't have one, then the question is moot and not something to get exercise about.
Actually, though, there are shortages all the time. Have you ever been in an ER corridor waiting for a room to open up? I have. That was the case both times I was in that situation. I imagine it's like that much if not most of the time. It's just that the backup is usually manageable. But I can easily see hospitals getting swamped by a flu pandemic. They operate close to the edge of capacity already. Increase comers by ten percent and you have gurneys in the halls. Another ten percent and you have to send home someone who should be in the hospital. Who decides? By what criteria? The only thing we know for sure is that somebody will decide. If there's no place left to put a patient, there's no choice. You being in denial won't stop it from happening. But, without a contingency plan, it will happen in the background where we have no input or knowledge and you can sleep at night. Unless you're the one sent home... |
