Who gets a ventilator? The devastating decisions no doctor should have to make
The CEO of George Hospital in the garden route Western Cape, Michael Vonk says hospital ethics committees have had to make hard decisions on which Covid-19 patients are deserving of a bed or ventilator.
In a health media briefing on Friday, Vonk shared the heart-wrenching challenges that health care workers had to deal with at the peak of Covid-19.
Vonk says having to decide on a patient’s life is a decision no doctor should ever have to make.
“One of the most difficult parts of working in a healthcare hospital is being part of the hospital ethics committee,” says Vonk.
“This committee, during the peak of the pandemic, has met daily, senior doctors, nurses, managers, doctors on the frontline, and doctors who specifically work with Covid-19 patients come together we use a standardised tool to decide which patient gets a bed, which patient will get a ventilator, and this is an absolutely devastating decision to make, and it’s a decision no doctor should ever have to make.”
He says the interference of Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent decisions that facilities had to make affected everyone, including non-Covid-19 patients.
“We had to convert our day wards and used available beds and this had a big knock-on on non-Covid-19 patients,” he says.
“Patients waiting for operations that had to be cancelled a number of times - we still make time for most urgent diseases but many patients who are just waiting for normal routine operations, unfortunately, are kept waiting,”
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