As the world struggles with the COVID-19 pandemic, health care system across the globe seem to be most affected. Statistics indicate that the old and especially those with a different chronic health condition are more susceptible to death from the virus ( Bedford et al., 2020) . All health care systems and practitioners are struggling because of limited resources and equipment making it hard for them to cater for every patient in a similar manner. To some extent, it has reached a level where facilities are concentrating more on patients who have a higher likelihood of surviving. Triage would be necessary to help single out patients with a better chance of survival. By the time a patient is admitted, he or she would have likely shown symptoms, placing them at a critical stage in the prognosis of the condition and it is often a matter of life and death ( Dhama et al., 2020) . Triage would help identify those to offer maximum assistance and treatment because of their increased chances of survival. Such a decision would be founded in deontological ethics which make an action moral if it is guided by a given moral code ( Mandal, Ponnambath & Parija, 2016) . The government should develop such a code to help guide decision making for facilities and practitioners as informed by current statistics of those less likely to survive and those who will recover as long as they are subjected to appropriate treatment. Those who are less likely to survive once infected, especially the elderly with chronic conditions, should be accorded less concentration from facilities and practitioners to help increase the likelihood of survival for those who have higher chances of beating the virus. Similar should be considered for DNR for family members in ICU or in coma. It would mean that family members of such patients would sign DNRs depending on the chance of surviving. The moral code would then allow practitioners to implement the DNR to help make room for the admission of patients with a higher chance of surviving.
References
Bedford, J., Enria, D., Giesecke, J., Heymann, D. L., Ihekweazu, C., Kobinger, G., ... & Ungchusak, K. (2020). COVID-19: towards controlling of a pandemic. The Lancet .
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Dhama, K., Sharun, K., Tiwari, R., Sircar, S., Bhat, S., Malik, Y. S., ... & Rodriguez-Morales, A. J. (2020). Coronavirus disease 2019–COVID-19.
Mandal, J., Ponnambath, D. K., & Parija, S. C. (2016). Utilitarian and deontological ethics in medicine. Tropical parasitology , 6 (1), 5.
