Calamities always hit the most vulnerable the hardest. The COVID emergency is a prime example.
A combination of biases and immoral hospital protocols have resulted in the death of an untold number of people suffering with the virus.
Biases about the disabled and elderly in the early stages of the crisis mean they were sent to the back of the line, or ignored, when it came to receiving life-saving treatments.
At the same time, anyone in live-in care homes ran a higher risk of contracting the disease, as well as being denied proper care. Visits from relatives were also prohibited, increasing the risk of abuse and adding to their feelings of isolation.
Hospitals Denying Basic Care
Well respected physicians have charged that hospitals across the country are denying food, hydration, and visitation rights to COVID patients.
This truth was revealed in shocking recordings of Mayo Clinic-Scottsdale and Banner Health System hospital executives discussing efforts to restrict fluids and nutrition for hospitalized COVID patients and to suppress all visitations.
“Age-based rationing is happening every day on COVID units in our hospitals,” according to Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet, a member of the Association of Physicians and Surgeons.
Dr. Vliet says the practice is similar to the Complete Lives System developed by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel for the purpose of rationing medical care for adults over 50. Dr. Emanuel was senior White House health policy adviser to President Obama and chief architect of the Affordable Care Act.
“When implemented, the Complete Lives System produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get changes that are attenuated,” Dr. Emanuel said. Attenuated means rationed, or restricted.
Flawed Protocols
Relying on flawed protocols to allocate resources resulted in the disabled dying from COVID at a rate twice as high as the general public.
That tragedy was driven by false assumptions about the disabled and the elderly, including: their overall health, quality of life, and usefulness in society.
The following are examples of how these protocols lead to the death of many of these vulnerable individuals.
Overall Health
The majority of pandemic protocols use “probable clinical outcome” as the primary decision-making factor. In other words, what is the likelihood that treatment will be worth the effort and cost for certain groups of people?
Many such protocols rely on well-ingrained biases that assume any disability necessarily means the person is less likely to recover and that the person’s life is not worth living anyway.
That’s simply not true. A 2020 bioethical symposium in Sydney, Australia concluded that people with sensory or mobility impairments, intellectual challenges, or chronically disabling illnesses are as likely to benefit from COVID treatment as anyone else.
To prevent such discrimination, caregivers need to make a distinction between general assumptions about disabilities and the specific health condition of a particular individual.
Quality of Life
Trying to judge a person’s quality of life in deciding whether or not to treat them is morally wrong.
There is abundant empirical evidence showing a wide discrepancy between what a non-disabled person thinks quality of life is compared to what a disabled person thinks. Many disabled people enjoy life as much as anyone else.
If such decisions are based on assumptions rather than evidence, they reinforce the prejudice that a life with a disability can never be as good as one without a disability.
Value to Society
This is the most diabolical criteria of all: How valuable to society are the elderly and disabled? Are they worth the effort and expense needed to save them?
This utilitarian approach totally denies a person’s God-given right to Personhood. The only consideration is whether or not the person contributes to society.
History demonstrates how absurd such thinking is with examples of people with disabilities who made tremendous contributions to society, including: Leonardo de Vinci, Michelangelo, Galileo, Sir Isaac Newton, Beethoven, Alexander Graham Bell, and Albert Einstein.
What the Guidelines Must State
- The disabled and elderly will be treated as equally worthy of care as anyone else.
- A person’s medical history will guide frontline care givers, not biased assumptions about their age, abilities, or condition.
- Assumed quality of life will not be considered.
- Perceived “value to society” must never be a consideration.
The Care Home Debacle
Elderly and disabled people living in care homes suffered a disproportionately high COVID infection rate, as well as an unacceptably high number of deaths.
One of the worst examples was New York City where an estimated 15,000 people in care homes died from the disease.
When hospitals in the city became overwhelmed in the early days of the pandemic, they were ordered, by the government, to send COVID patients to care homes and be placed alongside an already vulnerable population.
Canadian Cover-up
An investigation into a care home in Quebec revealed that its operators blamed COVID as the cause of death in many instances to hide the fact that people actually died from dehydration, malnourishment, and neglect.
Dehydration is a major problem for people over 60 who have just over 50 percent of the fluids in the bodies that they should have. Unfortunately, many care home staff don’t offer water or other fluids throughout the day.
Addressing the overall problem, an auxiliary nurse at the Quebec care home testified that after the government banned visitors, including family care givers, “…many elderly residents with Alzheimer’s disease declined quickly when left to themselves.”
She added, “I had the impression that they were blaming the virus because it would be easier to blame the virus than to acknowledge the hard truth that these people suffered from malnourishment and dehydration. I felt that it was a way to escape culpability.”
Conclusion
In the past, we could expect that the Patient Bill of Rights was being followed, which among other rights, affirmed that patients would:
- Be treated without discrimination based on race, color, national origin, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, physical or mental disability, religion, language, or ability to pay.
- Be provided a list of protective and advocacy services when needed.
Tragically, that is no longer the case.
The COVID pandemic continues and may get worse with new variants, or there may be another crisis that puts the vulnerable at risk again.
We must be vigilant and actively involved to demand that the Personhood of every individual be recognized and that each person receives appropriate and desired care. We can no longer assume we’re receiving proper medical care.
Sources: alexschadenberg.blogslot.com; epcc.ca; cdnl.sph.harvard.edu; link.springer.com; news10.com; statnews.com; npr.org; halovoice.org; wnd.com.
By Wayne DuBois
Georgia Right to Life
Media Relations Advisor