Disability Discrimination, Medical Rationing and COVID-19
- PDF / 267,585 Bytes
- 8 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 35 Downloads / 177 Views
Disability Discrimination, Medical Rationing and COVID-19 Bo Chen 1 & Donna Marie McNamara 2 Received: 10 July 2020 / Revised: 14 August 2020 / Accepted: 17 August 2020 # National University of Singapore and Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020
Abstract The current public health crisis has exposed deep cracks in social equality and justice for marginalised and vulnerable communities around the world. The reported rise in the number of ‘do not resuscitate’ orders being imposed on people with disabilities has caused particular concerns from a human rights perspective. While the evidence of this is contested, this article will consider the human rights implications at stake and the dangers associated with using ‘quality of life’ measures as determinant of care in medical decision-making and triage assessments. Keywords Disability rights . Medical necessity . Right to dignity . Medical treatment
Introduction At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were concerns about how health services would cope with the rising numbers of patients in a critical condition, thereby leading to the question of how patients with disabilities might be ‘triaged’ under insufficient ventilators or staff (Bagenstos 2020). Vulnerable members of society, including older persons and people with disabilities, were seen as being most at risk, and healthcare professionals were advised to prioritise those who had the best chance of recovery in the event of a mass outbreak. These attitudes and approaches raise complex ethical and legal questions which challenge our commitment to human rights and equality. There are further concerns about the appropriateness of resorting to a
* Donna Marie McNamara [email protected]
1
Faculty of Law, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau, China
2
Newcastle Law School, The University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia
Asian Bioethics Review
utilitarian model of distributive justice in medical rationing during crisis and whether this can be permitted under human rights law, specifically the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). This article will critically discuss the human rights tensions regarding medical rationing on the basis of disability in this context. In the article, we use ‘medical rationing’ as an umbrella concept referring to the reported ‘do not resuscitate’ (DNRs) orders and other forms of triage protocols which seek to exclude people with disabilities from accessing lifesaving treatment. We acknowledge a possible utilitarian defence for imposing such measures on the basis that, particularly in cases of a public health crises, decisions may need to be made out of ‘necessity’ about resources distribution and rationing (Emanuel et al. 2020). This article argues that while rationing is somewhat unavoidable during a pandemic, therefore, decisions as to the allocation of resources may come down to a decision as to which patients have the highest chance of survival. However, we contend that the defence of medical necessity cannot amount to
Data Loading...
