[Diary/Dairy]

Not shocking, but still hard to think about human life that way.

[llg]

I agree with the other posters in this thread. There is nothing new or shocking in these recommendations. Anybody who has thought about these issues before have always known that's how it would be done. The only people who might be taken aback by them are people who have never given it any thought.

I'm just happy to see some official group put it in writing and publicize it so that the general public might be better prepared for the reality that will be when/if disasters occur.

I hope it leads to healthy conversation about the wisdom (foolishness) of spending our limited resources on people who are unlikely to be saved -- or at least much less likely to be saved.

[Diary/Dairy]

Maybe this was put out there to help educate the public. Most people refuse to think of death, despite the fact that death is waiting for us all, eventually.

I have cared for a lot of people whose family never seemed to consider that at 85, Dad/Grandpa is not going to last much longer.....

[aleah]

taken from www.msnbc.msn.com


"The proposed guidelines are designed to be a blueprint for hospitals "so that everybody will be thinking in the same way'' when pandemic flu or another widespread health care disaster hits, said Dr. Asha Devereaux. She is a critical care specialist in San Diego and lead writer of the task force report.
The idea is to try to make sure that scarce resources — including ventilators, medicine and doctors and nurses — are used in a uniform, objective way, task force members said.
Their recommendations appear in a report appearing Monday in the May edition of Chest, the medical journal of the American College of Chest Physicians.
"If a mass casualty critical care event were to occur tomorrow, many people with clinical conditions that are survivable under usual health care system conditions may have to forgo life-sustaining interventions owing to deficiencies in supply or staffing,'' the report states.
To prepare, hospitals should designate a triage team with the Godlike task of deciding who will and who won't get lifesaving care, the task force wrote. Those out of luck are the people at high risk of death and a slim chance of long-term survival. But the recommendations get much more specific, and include:

• <LI class=textBodyBlack>People older than 85 <LI class=textBodyBlack>Those with severe trauma, which could include critical injuries from car crashes and shootings. <LI class=textBodyBlack>Severely burned patients older than 60. <LI class=textBodyBlack>Those with severe mental impairment, which could include advanced Alzheimer's disease.
• Those with a severe chronic disease, such as advanced heart failure, lung disease or poorly controlled diabetes."

while i understand the concept of triage, and realize that as a nurse one day i may have to perform tasks i won't like, this seems to go beyond your basic ER assessment into a pretty harsh territory. i apologize, this is the idealist in me speaking...when i worked as a CNA i was chastised once for being teary when they stopped parenteral nutrition.

[Kiren]

I think people in the medical field already know how triage is supposed to be handled during a disaster. Patients least likely to survive are treated last. Yes, it is common sense but, it is little consolation to people watching their loved ones being denied treatment. I pray it never comes to that here.

[elkpark]

(Moderator's note: The three separate threads started this morning about this article have all been merged into a single thread. Carry on! )

[elkpark]

Originally Posted by aleah

while i understand the concept of triage, and realize that as a nurse one day i may have to perform tasks i won't like, this seems to go beyond your basic ER assessment into a pretty harsh territory. i apologize, this is the idealist in me speaking...when i worked as a CNA i was chastised once for being teary when they stopped parenteral nutrition.

It doesn't go beyond "basic ER assessment," it's an entirely different concept than basic ER assessment. Typical ED triage is a matter of making sure that everyone who comes in gets everything (treatment) they need, but the people with the most serious needs get seen and treated before the people who are less seriously ill or injured. Battlefield/disaster triage priorities are based on the principle that you have limited amounts of personnel and supplies to care for all the victims, and you have to concentrate your efforts on treating the people with the best chance of surviving, and leave the others. I'm sure you've seen war movies with the (inevitable, ubiquitous) scene of the medic giving a badly wounded soldier a shot of morphine to ease his pain, and walking (crawling) away without attempting to treat his injuries -- that's the kind of triaging we're talking about here. In a true disaster/pandemic scenario, there would not be enough supplies or personnel to treat everyone, and a lot of hard choices would have to be made. It would be official policy to not treat those with a poor chance of survival.

[10MG-IV]

New Orleans Hurricane Katrina Dr Poa, Nurses Landry and Budo. Ask them. No good deed goes unpunished. They stayed for their patients. http://www.memorialnursessupportfund.com/index.html

[cardiacRN2006]

Originally Posted by Kiren

Patients least likely to survive are treated last.

Or not treated at all.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triage

[SharonH, RN]

Originally Posted by 10MG-IV

New Orleans Hurricane Katrina Dr Poa, Nurses Landry and Budo. Ask them. No good deed goes unpunished. They stayed for their patients. http://www.memorialnursessupportfund.com/index.html

You beat me to the punch. In addition to the charges of euthanasia there charges of abandonment for other caregivers. Whether or not these claims and accusations had merit is not the point; the system needs to be in place in advance and it should be publicized as it is so caregivers can be protected not just from the general public but the law. What is standard to us is not standard to them.