Open AccessResource Allocation During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Contributions to an Ethical Approach
Author(s) -
Margarida Sobral,
Bárbara Santa Rosa,
Margarida Silvestre
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
acta médica portuguesa
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.316
H-Index - 21
eISSN - 1646-0758
pISSN - 0870-399X
DOI - 10.20344/amp.16142
Subject(s) - welfare economics , pandemic , context (archaeology) , covid-19 , political science , humanities , medicine , economics , philosophy , geography , disease , archaeology , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty)
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought dramatic worldwide consequences affecting social, economic and healthcare systems. Considering that the number of infected patients requiring admission to intensive care units far exceeded the available resources, healthcare professionals have had to face challenging decisions concerning who should benefit from the limited resources and who should not. In this context, after a careful ethical reflection, we propose some principles to be adopted when dealing with allocation resource decisions, based on core ethical values. Ideally, these strategies should be established and integrated into institutional policies before a crisis scenario, in order to anticipate a potential new public health emergency and prevent possible tragic consequences.