The medical systems were overwhelmed, and medical staff had to make horrible decisions about treatment, such as which patients should be connected to ventilators that could keep them breathing. In addition, the shortage forced health care officials worldwide to weigh ethical questions about who should get priority.
In some countries, there were no national guidelines for allocating scarce health care resources such as ventilators and hospital intensive care beds in times of crisis. However, some countries have issued clinical ethics recommendations for the allocation of intensive care treatments, such as the use of ventilators.
It is undeniable that people should have an equal chance when there are sufficient resources. But when there are limited resources, medical staff take various factors into account. For example , they say that an age limit for admission to the intensive care unit may need to be set in order to save limited resources. Doctors made decisions that favour younger patients over older ones during the peak of Covid 19 worldwide.
REQUIRED:
(a) Who do you think should be in the priority group to receive intensive care treatment? Explain your answer from a utilitarian point of view.
(b) Who do you think should be in the priority group to receive intensive care treatment? Explain your answer from a justice and fairness perspective.