(Nancy Valko, RN ALNC) – “Ironically, the Covid 19 pandemic has pulled back the curtain on how far our healthcare ethics has fallen from the ideal of respecting every life to the dangerous notion that some lives are expendable-even our own.”
I have written about how the Covid 19 pandemic has resulted in dangerous and unethical responses like ventilator rationing, unilateral DNRs, and some states ordering nursing homes and other long-term care facilities to accept coronavirus patients discharged from hospitals.
But now, the Covid 19 crisis has also spawned new ideas such as the American Clinicians Academy On Medical Aid in Dying’s policy recommendations on medically assisted suicide requests by telemedicine in the context of Covid 19 and Covid 19 advance directives aimed at refusing potentially life-saving treatment. CONTINUE