by Linda Straker
- Committee will guide about admission if or when hospital system is flooded with Covid-19 victims
- Committee will comprise individuals from a medical background
- From mid-August Grenada has been experiencing a spike in Covid-19 infections and admissions
With significant increases in Covid-19 infections and hospitalisations, Grenada is to establish an Ethics/Triage Committee that will guide hospital healthcare providers about admission if or when the system is flooded with Covid-19 victims.
Health Minister Nickolas Steele said that the committee will be set up within the next day or two, and will comprise individuals from a medical background. “It exists everywhere else, and we need to be honest with the public,” he said.
“It’s time that we put that in place and hope that we never use it, what is referred to as an ethics committee — is a group of individuals who will decide when the hospital gets inundated who gets let in and does not,” he said during the weekly Tuesday’s Post-Cabinet briefing.
According to a medical official, the ethics committee is “a body of persons established by a hospital or health care institution and assigned to consider, debate, study, take action on or report on ethical issues that arise in patient care.”
“We do have to have that setup, I do hope that it is never used,” said the health minister who explained that the island is into phase 2 of its Covid-19 contingency plan. Phase 1 was setting up a special unit with 15 to 23 beds, and phase 2 is setting up an entire floor at the General Hospital that will accommodate between 15 to 47 patients. That floor is already set up at the General Hospital.
From mid-August, Grenada has been experiencing a spike in Covid-19 infections and admissions. The daily Ministry of Health Covid-19 Dashboard shows that as of 6 September, there are 25 people currently hospitalised and 1,185 active local cases due to community spread of the virus.
On 5 September 2021, the hospital recorded 7 Covid-19 related deaths. In total, there have been 12 Covid-19 related deaths in Grenada since March 2020.
Steele said that phase 3 of the contingency plan will see the converting of the 26-bed Princess Alice Hospital in the eastern parish of St Andrew into the designated Covid-19 hospital. Steele said that once such a decision is taken individuals with no Covid-19 related medical issues currently at the facility will be moved to another place for medical attention.
Sadly, these decisions have been forced upon medical facilities all over the world. It’s awful that it’s now coming to that in our Grenada as well. Those who are eligible for vaccination, but choose not to (because their research comes from Facebook and Tic Tok!!) should accept the consequences of the virus, if they get it and let the compromised who were willing, but unable to receive it, have the beds. This is my opinion. It’s a very sad, sad, awful situation…but it is also somewhat preventable…I mean to the point of less severe and not deadly if you vaccinate. Prayers for all in these horrid times. Prayers for all.
Didnt know GOD HAD ARRIVED.IN GRENADA – HE DECIDES WHO LIVES WHO DIES NOT THE STATE!
While we are on the ethics of who should be treated and who should not, please put the follow groups into the order that they should be allowed access to medical treatment.
-Diabetics who continue to eat processed sugar
-The obese who consume more than 3000 calories per day
-Tobacco smokers
– those who consume more than 1 alcoholic beverage per day
-people who do not exercise 3x per week
– those who eat fast food more than 2x per week
– those diagnosed with prostate disease who continue to eat fried fatty foods
Once you get through the above list the ethics committee should factor in how many useful years of life a person has left to contribute to the herd.
In China, which leads the way in ethics, they ration medical treatment based on obedience, good credit and loyalty to the Party.
You’re really going to talk about how great China is when they created this virus and unleashed it on the world?
Let’s hope they put any unvaccinated in the back of the queue. If you don’t believe in medical science, don’t go running to the hospital when you get sick. Simple as that. Only vaccinated should be treated.
There are some who were not able to be vaccinated for one reason or the other – pre-existing risks, pregnancy, ineligibility.
Well sure, if someone wasn’t eligible they should be at the top of the list still. But 99% of unvaxxed were eligible and simply didn’t do it for various, illogical reasons (and despite the risk they posed to those actually inelligible). Many of these anti-vaxxers also flooded social media with dangerous misinformation.
So let the eligible unvaxxed stay home from the hospital and we won’t have a problem. (And btw, pregnancy did not make you ineligible for vaccination).
After reading your comments, I can safely assume that your last two brain cells are fighting for 3rd place.
Life is life, please don’t be ignorant. No all unvaccinated persons can be vaccinated.
Looks like they getting ready to establish a board which decides who gets to live and who has to die. Yes, you get to go on a ventilator or sorry you are too old.
That is a very thin slope you walking on my friends.
If/when ICU resources become stretched to the limit, the decision of who gets access and who doesn’t is literally an inescapable one. There is no way out of it. Whatever decision is taken persons would die. If they just throw their hands up in the air and say they can’t choose, persons will die. Therefore those having to make the decision can be likened to being under a form of duress and are therefore not to be blamed by anyone for any deaths. They are not responsible for the deaths – the disease is and to a certain extent some of the patients who would have squandered their opportunity to get vaccinated. They actually have to make these decisions to try their best to reduce the number of deaths.
I understand that. It still remains a very thin slope in terms of who is going to make those decisions.