Publication Date
2022
Document Type
Article
Organizational Units
Sturm College of Law
Abstract
As hospitals in the US and elsewhere fill again with patients with covid-19, discussions about how to fairly allocate scarce medical resources have come to the fore once again. One frequently voiced concern is that non-covid-19 patients with urgent health needs are facing indefinitely postponed surgeries, long-distance hospital transfers, or even are unable to access medical treatment. In our view, a reserve or categorised priority system could help. It could be used to fairly distribute scarce medical capacity—such as staffing, physical space, and medical treatments—between covid-19 and non-covid-19 patients, just as it has been used or proposed to allocate covid-19 therapeutics and vaccines.
Copyright Date
2022
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
File Format
application/pdf
Publication Statement
Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.
Publication Title
The BMJ
Recommended Citation
Govind Persad et al., Fair Access to Scarce Medical Capacity for Non-Covid-19 Patients: A Role for Reserves, 376 BMJ o276 (2022).
