Chicagogal
Well-known member
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/10/22/us-health-ebola-usa-interventions-idUKKCN0IB2OM20141022
he Ebola crisis is forcing the American healthcare system to consider the previously unthinkable: withholding some medical interventions because they are too dangerous to doctors and nurses and unlikely to help a patient.
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Their concern is that poorly trained or poorly equipped hospitals that perform invasive procedures will expose staff to bodily fluids of a patient when they are most infectious. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is working with kidney specialists on clinical guidelines for delivering dialysis to Ebola patients. The recommendations could come as early as this week.
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Because the world has almost no experience treating Ebola patients in state-of-the-art facilities rather than the rudimentary ones in Africa, there are no reliable data on when someone truly is beyond help, whether dialysis can make the difference between life and death, or even whether cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) can be done safely with proper protective equipment and protocols.
Such procedures "may have diminishing effectiveness as the severity of the disease increases, but we simply have no data on that," said Dr. G. Kevin Donovan, director of the bioethics center at Georgetown University.
Donovan said he had received inquiries from fellow physicians about whether hospitals should draw up lists of procedures that would not be performed on an Ebola patient. "To have a blanket refusal to offer these procedures is not ethically acceptable,? he said he told the doctors.
he Ebola crisis is forcing the American healthcare system to consider the previously unthinkable: withholding some medical interventions because they are too dangerous to doctors and nurses and unlikely to help a patient.
...
Their concern is that poorly trained or poorly equipped hospitals that perform invasive procedures will expose staff to bodily fluids of a patient when they are most infectious. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is working with kidney specialists on clinical guidelines for delivering dialysis to Ebola patients. The recommendations could come as early as this week.
...
Because the world has almost no experience treating Ebola patients in state-of-the-art facilities rather than the rudimentary ones in Africa, there are no reliable data on when someone truly is beyond help, whether dialysis can make the difference between life and death, or even whether cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) can be done safely with proper protective equipment and protocols.
Such procedures "may have diminishing effectiveness as the severity of the disease increases, but we simply have no data on that," said Dr. G. Kevin Donovan, director of the bioethics center at Georgetown University.
Donovan said he had received inquiries from fellow physicians about whether hospitals should draw up lists of procedures that would not be performed on an Ebola patient. "To have a blanket refusal to offer these procedures is not ethically acceptable,? he said he told the doctors.
