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
Publication Statement
Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.
File Format
application/pdf
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).