Alabama plan for who doesn't get ventilated: severe Retarded, dementia, Cancer, HIV, severe burns

[Demovictory9]

Link to tweet

https://www.al.com/news/2020/03/last-resort-alabamas-plan-for-deciding-which-coronavirus-patients-get-ventilators.html

In the coming weeks, difficult decisions about who will live and who will die in Alabama may hinge on a little-discussed document outlining the state’s suggested “criteria for mechanical ventilator triage” during pandemics like the current COVID-19 outbreak.

According to the state document, any of a wide range of underlying health conditions – such as metastasized cancer, AIDS, “severe mental retardation,” advanced dementia and “severe burns” – could disqualify patients from being put on potentially lifesaving ventilators if a pandemic grows dire enough. And some people already on ventilators could be removed from them to make space for people impacted by the pandemic, according to the guidance.

[roamer65]

1. ...and get ready for a team of lawyers that will bankrupt AL.

[beachbumbob]

2. death panels

[Blue_true]

20. Yes indeed. nt

[irisblue]

23. Republican Run Death Panels, use that phrase often

[cwydro]

19. I don't understand.

Plenty of white people have those conditions.

[Captain Stern]

26. You might want to reread the article.

Unless you're suggesting (or outright saying) that only non-whites can be severely retarded, have dementia, are severely burned, have cancer, or HIV, then what you said probably didn't come out the way you meant it.

If you actually, literally, did mean that.....then, that's not good.

[ck4829]

4. And the 'political triaging' begins... triaging not on health and chance to survive but on ideology

These conditions sound kind of vague, people in Alabama will see why soon enough

[Croney]

5. It is jarring to see the R word used like this.

I wondered if the document was old. Apparently it was written in 2009 and revised in 2010. Alabama is stuck in the past in more ways than one.

[ck4829]

6. And it also makes me wonder how the designation is distributed

Shades of Carrie Buck, who was a "problem" for her foster parents (She was raped and impregnated by her foster parents' nephew), declared "feeble-minded", and sterilized when all accounts and subsequent investigations found out she was completely average.

She was just inconvenient for some other people out there.

[janterry]

7. it's actually an IQ range

Many of the folks who have developmental delays that you see out and about are about 50-70. Those that are moderate are about 35/40-50.

Folks with severe -what was called MR - are under that. They aren't ambulatory at all and the IQ estimate is really very low - 20-25. They have a whole host of other problems (medical).

To be honest, ventilation is a very invasive process. I'm not sure I'd want my child to endure that, given these circumstances. There are a whole host of probable lung/heart issues. So, I can't imagine that they'd even survive. I think I'd want my child to receive comfort care.

[ck4829]

8. Oh, I'm suuure that will be the only definition they'd use

[janterry]

10. It really is the diagnosis

it's not as subjective as that.

I understand your worry, though. And - for sure - many folks with developmental delays have endured quite a lot of bias and abuse (and worse!) throughout the years.

[Demovictory9]

17. I hesitated to use the term but the article used "mental retardation".

[ecstatic]

9. And I'm sure there's an unspoken policy regarding race

as well.

[moonscape]

32. And political affiliation. n/t

[Kaleva]

11. Has anyone been able to read the actual state document?

It asks for a password when I click on the link.

[Baitball Blogger]

12. "Corona Camps in Alabama"

Slower than lynching, but just as lethal.

[pwb]

13. Sad for Alabama.

.

[octoberlib]

14. They're practicing eugenics. Doesn't surprise me. Hitler would be proud.

[doc03]

15. Who is gone to manage this Death Panel Sarah Pallin? nt

[Blue_true]

21. Given that it's Alabama, some bible-thumping numbskull.

Of course, anyone that loudly and publicly profess faith in Jesus, gets vented no questions asked.

[delisen]

16. Reason state will never provide full health care

It follows a philosophy of economic scarcity with winners and losers and sees persons as not individuals but as members of groups .
In order to have winners you must have losers.

The alternative view would be to build a society that is based upon human rights and individual equality.

[Brainfodder]

18. Can we secede from Alabama and quick, 2 weeks notice but none given to this evil of the McShits?

Do these assholes have a death wish?

They don't actually think scott free and public love is in their future?

Truly ill?

[Alea]

22. Missed the "Last Resort" part of it did ya?

Show me a state that will not implement this as a "last resort." Once any state has more cv cases that need ventilators than ventilators are available for, they will triage accordingly.

There should be plenty of ventilators anyway now that elon is supplying cpap machines to hospitals and calling them ventilators

[GeorgiaPeanut]

24. What?

Did I read that right? O.M.G.

[hack89]

25. What criteria should they use?

Hard choices may have to be made.

[Turbineguy]

27. I'd wear a MAGA hat to the hospital

just in case.

[mike_c]

28. this isn't just Alabama

New York Times, about 15 minutes ago:

"Patient Has Virus and Serious Cancer. Should Doctors Withhold Ventilator?

With a looming shortage of equipment for coronavirus patients in New York City, doctors say they may soon need to make difficult choices.

But soon, patients such as those might not receive similar aggressive treatment. As people with the virus overwhelm New York City hospitals, doctors have stepped up pressure on state health officials to give them a rare and unsettling power: the right to withhold care from patients who are not likely to recover."

[Thomas Hurt]

29. If that person is in latter stages of cancer they may not want a ventilator.

Doesn't matter whether it happens in NY or AL if it is due to a shortage of ventilators......you hang that on the Pig's admin.

If it some purpose built elimination whether there are enough ventilators or not. It is just fascist triage.

Letting the "lessers" die is part of the base of conservative ideology.

[milestogo]

30. Are those the groups that are likely going to get cv or just the groups they'd like to eradicate?

[Captain Stern]

31. What else can they, or anyone else, do when faced with that kind of choice?

When we only have the medical resources to save x amount of people, and there are y amount of people that need those resources, and y > x, then that means some folks aren't getting saved.

There's not really a 'good' choice in that case.

[moonscape]

33. Agree. As a cancer patient, I wouldn't want

to go on a ventilator at the expense of a young healthy person.. Not going on one is one thing, there’s something creepy and particularly tragic about being taken off one once on though.