Patients could have treatment withdrawn to save others during pandemic

The British Medical Association's latest ethics advice said health professionals could be forced to make ‘grave decisions’ should hospitals become overwhelmed with patients.

The document warns that decisions around rationing scarce resources, such as ventilators, could determine whether large numbers of patients will receive life-saving treatment or not.

JUSTICE: Sheffield Crown Court: “Still open for business.”

The BMA's new guidance aims to ensure doctors have clear and ‘ethically sound support’ should they have to make tough decisions around patient care during the pandemic.

Dr John Chisholm, chairman of the BMA's medical ethics committee, said: “Looking ahead to the coming weeks, if hard choices are required, we know they will be contested. There will be anger and pain.

“People who, in normal circumstances, would receive strenuous treatment may instead be given palliation in order to favour those with greater likelihood of benefiting.

“Nobody wants to make these decisions, but if resources are overwhelmed, these decisions must be made.”

The guidance states that during the peak of the pandemic doctors may have to assess a person's eligibility for treatment based on a ‘capacity to benefit quickly’ basis.

“Health professionals may be obliged to withdraw treatment from some patients to enable treatment of other patients with a higher survival probability,” the guidance states.

“This may involve withdrawing treatment from an individual who is stable or even improving but whose objective assessment indicates a worse prognosis than another patient who requires the same resource.”

FIGURES: Sheffield case rate jumps by nearly 20 per cent in a day as another death confirmed

Some 2,352 patients had died in hospital after testing positive for the virus as of 5pm on Tuesday, the Department of Health said - up by 563 from 1,789 the day before.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a video posted on Twitter that it was a ‘sad, sad day’ and that his ‘thoughts go out to the families of the victims’.

The World Health Organisation said the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases around the globe will exceed one million in the coming days.

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