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Report offers recommendations on who gets care in a disaster
Published May 2008
It’s a question fraught with legal, ethical, and political pitfalls, but a new report makes specific recommendations for which patients physicians should treat in the event of a flu pandemic or other widespread healthcare disaster.
The recommendations appear in report being published in the May edition of Chest, the medical journal of the American College of Chest Physicians.
The guidelines were drafted by a task force whose members come from universities, medical groups, the military, and government agencies that include the Department of Homeland Security, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Department of Health and Human Services, reported the Associated Press (AP).
Knowing not everyone who needs lifesaving care will receive it in a disaster, the group has drafted a list for which patients would not be treated including elderly patients over 85, seriously hurt trauma victims, severely burned patients, those with severe dementia, and those with a severe chronic disease, the AP reported.
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