From my DMs. This is a classic medical ethics question.

I understand the anger and frustration driving this. The philosophical question of fairness & who gets treatment and who doesn’t.

However if we believe in universal healthcare, we can’t ration healthcare based on morality.
If you speed going 200 km/hr, if you give yourself alcohol poisoning because someone dared you to a Centurion, if you lost a game of South Park Roshambo, if you broke your hand in a pointless hockey fight b/c of some dumb “Code”, you shouldn’t get rationed healthcare differently.
We can triage based on severity, based on prognosis, on how likely you are to benefit, on what it is the most appropriate level of care.

But I don’t think we can triage based on whether you made a single bad decision. No matter how poor that decision was.
In a universal, public healthcare system, the cost of that system (both in $ and capacity) should be shared by the public despite being used individually.

Even if at times that seems unfair.

Because some day it might be ‘your’ dumb decision.
HOWEVER…
Because we share this public system, we have laws and policies to protect that system.

We have seatbelt laws. Driving laws. We regulate safety in businesses. Have building codes. Tax cigarettes.

We encourage some things, disincentivize others, regulate & make laws.
Some of the those rules and policies explicitly protect other people. Others protect the individual and some do both.

But we use public policy and rules to protect the public interest & institutions all the time.

These rules keep public systems from collapsing.
Now, the line of how far rules should go, what should be outlawed, what is left to individual choice is an area of reasonable debate.

But, if an action threatens the sustainability of an entire public healthcare system… surely that if nothing else should public policy!
Some people may break those rules despite policy/laws. They’ll speed. They’ll commit horrendous crimes. And if they do do, we STILL treat them.

But the policies/laws exist to decrease those events & maintain public functioning.
So BECAUSE we should ethically treat people who are unvaccinated, and BECAUSE having too many unvaccinated will / is crushing the healthcare system, we NEED to therefore have policies about vaccination.
Clearly no one should be ‘forced’ to be vaccinated.

However, much like other acts that are potentially dangerous to self or others, there needs to be consequences for that choice.
How far those consequences go is also up for debate. But having none is untenable. We’re seeing that. It’s a failure to govern & to lead.

A failure to protect the public interest and manage the public institutions that help society function.
For these reasons, I argue we treat & triage people who are unvaccinated the same as anyone else.

But we also have vaccine requirements for non-essential public events. For some occupations & roles. And support private businesses who do the same.
And there will be some to break those laws, who forge a document or whatever. And if & when that happens, should they get sick, they get treated, and then they face whatever public consequence exists for breaking those rules.

Like any other public rule.
In sum:
Making very poor decisions shouldn’t impact your access to healthcare. But if these poor decisions are threatening the entire healthcare system then the gov’t needs to intervene to make those poor decisions much more difficult to make.

Like we do w/ other poor decisions.
That doesn’t mean you can’t be angry or frustrated with people who are unvaccinated. But once they step into the hospital suffering from the consequences of their choices, they get treated like everyone else suffering from the consequences of their choices.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with WheatNOil

WheatNOil Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @WheatNOil

15 Sep
Not controlling for age (which would make this number worse) and subtracting the estimated number of children <12 in hospital, there are 591 excess hospitalizations due to under vaccination.

That’s almost enough to completely fill the U of A Hospital (which has 650 total beds).
That includes 191 excess ICU beds due to under vaccination. A good size ICU is about 20 beds or so.

So there’s about 9-10 full ICUs in excess of what one might expect if everyone 12+ was vaccinated. (Not accounting for age or decrease in spread due to vaccination.)
Who wants some GRAPHS?

This is your chance of being in hospital with COVID 'right now' in Alberta. Current admission ages estimated based on admission data over the last 120 days.

Some breakthrough in the older age groups, but it's mostly unvaxxed people. Image
Read 8 tweets
15 Sep
I’ve tweeted about this before but the impact of social media, especially Instagram, on teenagers makes sense from a psychological development point of view.

It’s an app that targets exactly the developmental stage of teens.
One of the major developmental goals for teens is identity formation. Teens strive to figure out who they are. Especially as if it relates to their peers. Younger kids are shaped more by their immediate family. Teens start to expand their circle.

That’s normal developmentally.
So imagine an app that allows you test out aspects of your identity. It gives you instant, immediate feedback. From your peers but also strangers. In fact, make it quantifiable. There’s no guesswork. Here’s the exact number of likes. And who specifically liked it.
Read 16 tweets
13 Sep
So @hinz_tamara & I are giving a Grand Rounds this Friday on Physician Advocacy Through Social Media. I’m going to live tweet some questions from the Rounds and share responses with the group.

But in anticipation of the rounds, I have some questions to my followers:
Feel free to respond to these in replies. This isn’t meant to be anything official, obviously this is not a research methodology. Just curious about what the responses might be.
1) What information do you most value from physicians through social media?
Read 5 tweets
13 Sep
Wait, is there going to be a protest against vaccine mandates in Calgary? A city in a province without a vaccine mandate? In front of hospitals that are so overloaded with unvaccinated people (b/c of this lack of mandate) that many vaccinated people had their healthcare canceled?
“What do we want?”

COVID!

“How do we want it?”

In such overwhelming quantities so as to overwhelm the healthcare system and cancel other people’s cancer surgeries!

Like, my dudes, you’ve already won, take the W and leave us be.
“We want to be able to eat at a restaurant without proof of vaccination!”

Sir, you are literally at the Wendy’s in front of U of A hospital. Without proof of vaccination. Now if you’ll excuse me, we’re trying to serve the families of all the unvaccinated people in the ICU.
Read 5 tweets
10 Sep
This is a dark time in Saskatchewan.

We didn’t have to be here.
To be clear, the patient wasn’t transferred because there’s no room at the other hospital. Still waiting.

My friends, the health system is crumbling in Saskatoon.

We bust at the seams at baseline. This is well beyond that.
You can’t just open more beds. Who’s going to staff them? It’s the 5th overtime and everyone’s running on fumes.

And it was supposed to be over by now.

It could’ve been.
Read 4 tweets
8 Sep
So, if we look at the rate of hospitalizations for double vaxxed folk (4.8 per 100,000) and apply it to number of people who are under-vaccinated, we can see how many ‘excess’ hospitalizations there are due to under-vaccination.

This is getting increasingly astounding.
If we remove the estimated number of people in hospital <12 (using the age hospitalization data over the last 120 days)…

There are 413 excess people in hospital in Alberta due to under-vaccination.

Which is more than the total number of beds in the entire Grey Nuns Hospital.
That includes 113 excess people in ICU alone.

Foothills hospital in Calgary is one of the largest hospitals in Western Canada. At baseline, they have a 26 bed unit.

So we’re talking multiple large ICUs filled with unvaccinated people in EXCESS of what’s expected w/ vaccination.
Read 15 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(