Italy no longer intubating those over 60 years old (60+, beach, milk)
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I did not read that there was a specific age cut-off, just that when there was only one ventilator and 2 patients in need of it the younger patient with a better survival rate would get it. Most people would agree with that except entitled old rich people who think that money=access.
If a ventilator isn't available for a patient, would an oxygen tank with nasal cannula or oxygen concentrator help the patient who has Covid-19? www.apria.com has/rents all this equipment.
www.inogen.com sells oxygen concentrators. Would these work to help a patient with Covid-19, if a ventilator isn't available?
If a ventilator isn't available for a patient, would an oxygen tank with nasal cannula or oxygen concentrator help the patient who has Covid-19? www.apria.com has/rents all this equipment.
www.inogen.com sells oxygen concentrators. Would these work to help a patient with Covid-19, if a ventilator isn't available?
No, if a patient needs a ventilator, nothing else is going to do.
"As Italy struggles to contain the rapidly spreading novel coronavirus, " a leading health agency in the Italyhas suggested intensive care units to treat young people in their wards before the elderly."
"The Society of Anesthesia, Analgesia, Resuscitation and Intensive Care, or SAARI, in Italy published guidance this week instructing healthcare providers to bypass the standard policy of "first come first served," and instead prioritize patients who have the best chance of survival. The agency urged ICUs to treat the epidemic with "catastrophe medicine" guidelines, which are only ever used in times of war or natural disaster."
"It may be necessary to place an age limit on admission to intensive care," read the guidelines from SAARI. "This is not a value judgment but a way to provide extremely scarce resources to those who have the highest likelihood of survival and could enjoy the largest number of life-years saved."
The average age of people dying in Italy from this virus is in the mid 80s. Many are in their 90s. Italy has the 6th highest longevity in the world. Do you save someone who is in their 50s or 60s or someone that most likely will only have one to a few years left regardless of the virus. Doctors have to make very hard decisions based on what they have available.
BTW, the numbers of deaths and new cases there seems to have peaked and finally started to come down the last couple of days.
I saw a news clip about wealthy people demanding from their doctors that they be able to buy those drugs that are currently showing promising results in treating the virus. They want to keep the meds at home just in case they get sick. Never mind they are asking their doctors to do something totally unethical and maybe even illegal. Some people are just selfish to no end.
They are also depriving people who need those drugs for the conditions they were developed for. There are now shortages of the drugs cited by Trump because of such demands.
Of course different sources and doctors may have varying data. I was quoting Dr. Birx who is one of the leading Doctors of the corona virus task force. She stated the data she has regarding Italy is that the medium age of death is in the mid 80s, not late 70s. This was stated at today's news conference.
What are your true thoughts on this? I am a 68 year old senior in fairly good health, I personally feel I have a lot of life left in me. I was sad and hurt to read this, but I guess hard decisions have to be made at some point. I wonder if it will come to this in the US?
This is why it's so important to self quarantine at home if at all possible--whether ordered to or not. The virus is going to spread, but if we can at least slow it down, it won't overwhelm the health care system.
Also, if we get a lot of sick people all at once, other essential services like water and electricity could also stop functioning.
I initially didn't take the virus seriously, but I've changed my mind after talking to some people in the medical field in my family and watching this video. You can skip to 2:57:
The situation in Italy seems to be so dire that things have devolved into the most primitive survival of the fittest mode. Not clear how it came to this as Italy is a first world country. The experts are telling us that the virus hasn’t reached it’s peak stage yet. Whether the US medical infrastructure can handle this is an open question.
To the bolded--We in so-called 1st world countries have a sense of arrogance / invincibility. I get it. I'm guilty of it, too.
Bad things can happen to us all. It's time for those of us in 1st World countries to stop thinking we're immune from such things.
Last edited by mysticaltyger; 03-23-2020 at 09:30 PM..
This has nothing to do with socialized medicine. No country, whatever it has socialized or private medicine, has enough excess capacity to cope with a respiratory virus pandemic with the characteristics of COVID-19.
I'm no fan of socialized medicine, either; but the above is just a fact.
Here is the original link on this topic (not the rubbish Daily Mirror publishes). It talks about the challenges in the context, and it makes a lot of sense. It is also a reminder of what a bad case looks like as we process the we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself.” direction that is emerging...
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