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Source: https://montrealgazette.com/news/lo...ors-will-have-to-kill-patients-to-save-others
Montreal hospitals nearing critical triage point, when doctors must 'kill people' to save others
Montreal hospitals are nearing the point where doctors and nurses will have to choose which ICU patients will be taken off ventilators.
Author of the article:
Michelle Lalonde • Montreal Gazette
Publishing date:
Jan 12, 2021 • Last Updated 8 hours ago • 5 minute read
Calling the situation in Montreal’s hospitals “really critical”, Quebec Premier Fran?ois Legault again begged Quebecers to avoid indoor gatherings particularly with people over the age of 65, because they are most likely to need hospitalization due to COVID-19 complications.
“The situation is really critical, especially in the greater Montreal region,” Legault said at his latest COVID-19 update in Montreal Monday afternoon. “Surgeries are having to be postponed; there is pressure on our emergency wards. I know it’s difficult, but Quebecers are capable to work as a team when necessary.”
More than half of Quebecers living in long-term care facilities — 21,478 people in total — have now received a first dose of vaccine against the deadly virus. And of the 115,375 doses the province has received so far, 80 per cent have already been administered.
But with 1,436 COVID-positive patients in hospitals across the province, many hospitals are overwhelmed, particularly in the Montreal region. The situation is at the point where hospital staff in Montreal are now doing online training for the “advanced triage protocol” to prepare for the horrific, and ever-more likely, possibility that they will soon be forced to choose who lives and who dies in their intensive care facilities.
“It is really scary and people don’t realize how close we are to that very scary part,” Dr. Fran?ois Marquis, chief of Critical Care Medicine at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital, told the Montreal Gazette Monday.
“We are going to kill people, because this is what the triage does. You kill people. One is okay and the other one will die. Everyone thinks there is a way out or a way around that process. There is none. You are a number. If they start the triage, what I have to do is I have to give a score to each and every patient in the ICU. Based on that score, some patients will die. We will remove the tube. We will kill them. This is what we are asked to do (in that scenario). That system doesn’t care about your beliefs or your religion or personal choice, nobody cares. It is a systematic application of a grid, and it’s not only for patients with COVID.”...
Montreal hospitals nearing critical triage point, when doctors must 'kill people' to save others
Montreal hospitals are nearing the point where doctors and nurses will have to choose which ICU patients will be taken off ventilators.
Author of the article:
Michelle Lalonde • Montreal Gazette
Publishing date:
Jan 12, 2021 • Last Updated 8 hours ago • 5 minute read
Calling the situation in Montreal’s hospitals “really critical”, Quebec Premier Fran?ois Legault again begged Quebecers to avoid indoor gatherings particularly with people over the age of 65, because they are most likely to need hospitalization due to COVID-19 complications.
“The situation is really critical, especially in the greater Montreal region,” Legault said at his latest COVID-19 update in Montreal Monday afternoon. “Surgeries are having to be postponed; there is pressure on our emergency wards. I know it’s difficult, but Quebecers are capable to work as a team when necessary.”
More than half of Quebecers living in long-term care facilities — 21,478 people in total — have now received a first dose of vaccine against the deadly virus. And of the 115,375 doses the province has received so far, 80 per cent have already been administered.
But with 1,436 COVID-positive patients in hospitals across the province, many hospitals are overwhelmed, particularly in the Montreal region. The situation is at the point where hospital staff in Montreal are now doing online training for the “advanced triage protocol” to prepare for the horrific, and ever-more likely, possibility that they will soon be forced to choose who lives and who dies in their intensive care facilities.
“It is really scary and people don’t realize how close we are to that very scary part,” Dr. Fran?ois Marquis, chief of Critical Care Medicine at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital, told the Montreal Gazette Monday.
“We are going to kill people, because this is what the triage does. You kill people. One is okay and the other one will die. Everyone thinks there is a way out or a way around that process. There is none. You are a number. If they start the triage, what I have to do is I have to give a score to each and every patient in the ICU. Based on that score, some patients will die. We will remove the tube. We will kill them. This is what we are asked to do (in that scenario). That system doesn’t care about your beliefs or your religion or personal choice, nobody cares. It is a systematic application of a grid, and it’s not only for patients with COVID.”...