Swine flu, doctors and pandemics: is there a duty to treat during a pandemic?

[tetano]

J Law Med. 2010 May;17(5):736-47.
Swine flu, doctors and pandemics: is there a duty to treat during a pandemic?

Bennett B, Carney T, Saint C.

Law School Building (F10), Eastern Avenue, Camperdown Campus, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. Belinda.Bennett@Sydney.edu.au
Abstract

The swine influenza (H1N1) outbreak in 2009 highlighted the ethical and legal pressures facing general practitioners and health workers in emergency departments in determining the nature and limits of their obligations to their patients and the public. Health workers require guidance on the multiple, overlapping, and at times conflicting legal and ethical duties owed to patients and prospective patients, employers and fellow health workers, and their families. Existing sources of advice on these issues in Australia, by way of statements of medical ethics and other sources of advice, are shown to be in need of further amplification if health workers are to be provided with the certainty and guidance required. Given the complexity of the issues, Australia would therefore benefit from more extensive consultation with the variety of stakeholders involved in these questions if pandemic plans are to smoothly deal with future crises in an ethically and legally sound manner.

PMID: 20552937 [PubMed - in process]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20552937

 

[Laidback Al]

Re: Swine flu, doctors and pandemics: is there a duty to treat during a pandemic?

. . .Australia would therefore benefit from more extensive consultation with the variety of stakeholders involved in these questions if pandemic plans are to smoothly deal with future crises in an ethically and legally sound manner.

Not just in Australia -- every country needs to consider these issues. Pandemics are world-wide events. Public health officials, medical and hospital personnel, government representatives, private sector businesses, and the general public all need to be involved in the discussion of bioethical issues and the development of plans relating to the allocation of scarce resources during a pandemic. This needs to be done now, before the next pandemic strikes.