Who will die then, doctors?

eveNTuALLy, NHs guidelines for Covid-19 will boil down to one simple question: who lives and who dies?

elderly patients with a low chance of survival could be taken off ventilators so the machines can be given to healthier patients, under new rules issued to doctors.

This is a terrible burden on medical staff. should we really be asking them to save some, while signing the death warrants of others?

The British Medical Association has released advice on prioritising intensive care treatment if the NHs becomes overwhelmed — but we all need to know exactly what they have in mind.

There is a hint that this will ‘inevitably be indirectly discriminatory against both the elderly and those with longterm health conditions’. But isn’t that first one illegal and the second one confusing? Will an otherwise healthy 60-year-old who had a heart attack a decade ago be booted off the machine to make way for a 25-year-old?

Who is to say that one life is worth more than another? And what about physically able people with dementia or acute mental-health conditions?

Many parents with children who have severe learning disabilities are worried they won’t receive the care they need.

Last week I heard about a man who was admitted to A&e with a severe chest infection but denied a bed in intensive care. As he lived in a care home and had restricted mobility and cognitive responses, he didn’t qualify for pandemic-led prioritisation. He later died.

The BMA must be scrupulously honest and transparent with us.