CHICAGO (AP) - It would be a gut-wrenching dilemma for doctors
if there's a flu pandemic or some other major health-care disaster.
A task force of physicians has drafted a grimly specific list of
recommendations for which patients wouldn't be treated. They
include the very elderly, seriously hurt trauma victims, severely
burned patients and those with severe dementia.
One of the lead writers of the report says the idea is to make
sure scarce resources, including doctors and nurses, are used in an
objective way. She calls it a blueprint for hospitals "so that
everybody will be thinking the same way" if disaster strikes.
But a public health law expert not involved in the report says
it's a political and legal "minefield" because the
recommendations probably violate federal discrimination laws.
The report is in this month's journal of the American College of
Chest Physicians.