The Bioethics and Law Observatory of the UB presents guidelines on the prioritization of critical patients in cases of limited means and medical staff

El Observatorio de Bioética y Derecho de la UB propone pautas para la priorización de pacientes críticos en caso de limitación de recursos y personal sanitario
El Observatorio de Bioética y Derecho de la UB propone pautas para la priorización de pacientes críticos en caso de limitación de recursos y personal sanitario
Research
(31/03/2020)

The report written by the the Bioethics and Law Observatory - UNESCO Chair on Bioethics (OBD) Recomendaciones para la toma de decisiones éticas sobre el acceso de pacientes a unidades de cuidados especiales en situaciones de pandemia (Recommentadions to take ethical decisions on the patientsʼ Access to special care units amid a pandemic) is cosigned by nineteen experts on medicine, law, bioethics, and is based on the given directions by scientific societies and ethics committees such as the Spanish Society of Intensive, Critical and Coronary Unit (SEMICYUC) and the Ethical Care Committee (CEA) from Hospital Clínic de Barcelona.

 

 

El Observatorio de Bioética y Derecho de la UB propone pautas para la priorización de pacientes críticos en caso de limitación de recursos y personal sanitario
El Observatorio de Bioética y Derecho de la UB propone pautas para la priorización de pacientes críticos en caso de limitación de recursos y personal sanitario
Research
31/03/2020

The report written by the the Bioethics and Law Observatory - UNESCO Chair on Bioethics (OBD) Recomendaciones para la toma de decisiones éticas sobre el acceso de pacientes a unidades de cuidados especiales en situaciones de pandemia (Recommentadions to take ethical decisions on the patientsʼ Access to special care units amid a pandemic) is cosigned by nineteen experts on medicine, law, bioethics, and is based on the given directions by scientific societies and ethics committees such as the Spanish Society of Intensive, Critical and Coronary Unit (SEMICYUC) and the Ethical Care Committee (CEA) from Hospital Clínic de Barcelona.

 

 

Despite confinement measures and habilitation of additional spaces to respond to the high number of serious cases of patients with COVID-19, the health system is on the brink of collapse. Regarding the imminent threat of being unable to attend all critical cases due to a lack of resources, the OBD , interdisciplinary research center of the UB, has written a report with guidelines for the medical staff about the prioritization of assistance to critical patients with COVID-19.

Experts recommend decision-taking to be conducted in a transparent and anonymous way as long as possible, following action guidelines -previously agreed on. With this purpose, they aim to create a committee to support the agreement on decision taking, formed by, at least, a member from the Ethical Care Committee from the health center and an intensive care doctor from the hospital, involved in the treatment of the patient.

Among the recommendations is the emphasis on the need to evaluate individually the expected benefit for each patient considering his or her clinical records, existence of comorbidity, expected evolution and last, the age.

The goal of the document is to contribute to the ethical decision taking regarding the teams involved in direct assistance, in which the process of decision-taking is usually complex, a situation that can worsen in the current context of a pandemic. The work by OBD is also aimed to share information with the citizens on the hard situation in the hospital system, both public and private hospitals, and the ethical decisions surrounding this issue, providing the reasons and bioethical principles in which these should be based on.

The OBD wants to remind these recommendations will be subject to a dynamic evaluation to adapt the exceptional criteria of the current reality and these can vary depending on how our knowledge about the disease develops as well as how the epidemiologic situation evolves in Spain.