Texas hospital launches death-panel to decide which COVID patients get to live and which get to die.

[DetlefK]

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/07/texas-hospital-panels/

Starr County Health Authority Dr. Jose Vazquez says that Starr County Memorial Hospital in McAllen, Texas — the county’s only hospital — has formed an “ethics committee” tasked with assessing the survival potential of coronavirus patients “and will send home those with low probabilities,” LocalSYR reports.

“There is nowhere to put these patients. The whole state of Texas and neighboring states have no ICU beds to spare for us,” Vazquez said Tuesday afternoon during a video conference call.

“We are going to have these committees reviewing each case,” Vazquez said. “End-of-life decisions and hospice decisions and comfort-care situation for all those patients who most certainly do not have any hope of improving we believe they will be better taken care in the love of their own family and home rather than thousands of miles away dying alone.”

[Indykatie]

1. Trust Me. This is Happening Across the Country as Medical Resources Get Stretched.

The GOP will finally get to see the death panels they've been screaming about for years. Let's see how vocal they are now that they have finally arrived under Trump.

[better]

2. Okay, seriously, calling these "death panels" is over the line.

I get that it is a tragedy that this has to happen, but we are supposed to be better than calling these death panels.
What we are really talking about here is TRIAGE, and to refer to these panels as "death panels" is beneath us.

We absolutely should hang this around the necks of Trump and the irresponsible governors in the red states where we're going to see this happen, but we must not sink to republicans' level and demonize the men and women upon whom fall the terrible burden of making the decisions panels like this will be forced to make, thanks to incompetent governance.

They're not going to be deciding who "gets" to live. They're going to be deciding who CAN be saved, so that precious care and resources are used to the best effect, to save as many as possible. When you have more patients than capacity to treat them, these are the decisions that have to be made.

[keithbvadu2]

3. Rep'n Guv Abbot will be known as the 'death panel guv'.

Rep'n Guv Abbot will be known as the 'death panel guv'.

The same Abbot who said Texas had plenty of hospital beds.