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Coronavirus Update: Age and patient's health conditions CRUCIAL factor to determine treatment in Italy
A document prepared by a crisis management unit in Turin propose has drawn up a protocol that will determine which patients receive treatment in intensive care and which do not due to insufficient spaces.
The most talked about thing in the entire world is Coronavirus. The entire world is battling Coronavirus at the moment. And now as per The Telegraph we got to know that Coronavirus victims in Italy won't get intensive care if they are aged 80 or more. A document prepared by a crisis management unit in Turin propose has drawn up a protocol that will determine which patients receive treatment in intensive care and which do not due to insufficient spaces. Due to the continuous spread of coronavirus, the intensive care capacity is running short in Italy.
The document says, "The criteria for access to intensive therapy in cases of emergency must include the age of less than 80 or a score on the Charlson comorbidity Index [which indicates how many other medical conditions the patient has] of less than 5." One doctor said: "Who lives and who dies is decided by age and by the patient's health conditions. This is how it is in a war." The document further said, "The growth of the current epidemic makes it likely that a point of imbalance between the clinical needs of patients with COVID-19 and the effective availability of intensive resources will be reached."
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It further said that should it become impossible to provide all patients with intensive care services, it will be necessary to apply criteria for access to intensive treatment, which depends on the limited resources available. The criteria set out guidelines if the situation becomes of such an exceptional nature as to make the therapeutic choices on the individual case depends on the availability of resources, forcing [hospitals] to focus on those cases in which the cost/benefit ratio is more favorable for clinical treatment.
The document is ready but is waiting for the approval from a technical-scientific committee before sending it to the hospitals. More than 1,000 people in Italy have now died from the virus and more than 15,000 are infected. Italy in total has 5,090 intensive care beds. They are working to create new bed capacity in private clinics, nursing homes and even in tents. But the country also needs doctors and nurses and equipment.
