Mathias Wirth, Head of the Ethics Department in the Faculty of Theology at the University of Bern. Picture: zvg
Mathias Wirth, Head of the Ethics Department in the Faculty of Theology at the University of Bern. Picture: zvg - An international expert group led by Mathias Wirth, Professor of Systematic Theology and Ethics at the University of Bern, has developed recommendations for avoiding triage of COVID-19 patients in extreme situations. The recommendations should support medical personnel in difficult decisions during a second wave of the infection and ensure better patient care. "A lack of intensive care ventilation units owing to rapidly increasing infection rates numbers among the most significant nightmare scenarios of the corona pandemic," says Mathias Wirth, Head of the Ethics Department in the Faculty of Theology at the University of Bern, because: "Shortages of supply can result in triage of patients suffering from severe cases of COVID-19 and thus force a life or death decision." Here, triage means favoring some COVID-19 patients over others depending on urgency and prognosis. Together with experts from Yale University, King's College London, Charité Berlin and Essen University Hospital, medical ethicist Mathias Wirth has prepared a statement on these difficult decisions. The statement was published in the "American Journal of Bioethics (AJOB)", the most frequently cited scientific journal in the entire field of ethics. Triage is only ethically justifiable under very specific circumstances.
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