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California Hospitals Warn They May Have to Ration Care

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The California Hospital Association is warning that some hospitals are getting so stretched by the pandemic, they may have to begin rationing care.

While new infections may be leveling off at the moment, there are still about 40,000 people testing positive for COVID-19 every day, and with 12% of them expected to need hospital care, hospital executives want to prepare the public for what “crisis care” might look like.

“There is nothing comfortable about this conversation,” Carmela Coyle, CEO of the California Hospital Association, said Thursday. “But those numbers are already cooked. The viral spread has already occurred.”

While no hospital has yet declared the need for crisis care, Coyle says some facilities, especially in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley regions, are on the cusp of another peak where demand for treatment could outstrip supply.

The state has guidelines in place to help hospitals decide who gets care and who doesn’t should that occur, with decisions falling to a triage team charged with making those decisions, rather than putting the burden on the treating physician.

“They're not the ones who are having to make the very hard call of telling a patient or family, ‘We simply don't have the ventilator or the oxygen or the bed space to meet your health care needs,’ ” said Christopher Meyers, a philosophy professor at CSU Bakersfield who consults with hospitals on ethics policies.

Generally, hospitals rely on a numerical score in determining allocation of resources, with priority usually given to patients who are both most likely to benefit from treatment and survive once they’re discharged.

April Dembosky

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