COVID Hospitalization Policies

I happen to know the president of a major university in Texas, who told me he can’t understand why hospitals that are overflowing don’t put a percentage limit on the number of ICU beds that they will fill with unvaccinated COVID patients.

In speaking with my mom last night, she thought this was outrageous.  “You can’t not admit someone just because of a choice they made with respect to what to allow in his body!” she declared. 

Here’s how I explained it:

Every day, in hundreds of our hospitals all across the U.S., a doctor has to make a decision that will result in the turning away of someone with an acute and potentially lethal health condition.  He will not be admitted to his institution’s ICU because it’s out of beds. These are burn victims, survivors of high-speed car crashes, cancer patients or people with conditions with their hearts, livers, kidneys, brains, etc. who will be sent home to die if that hospital accommodates all its omicron cases in front of them.  This is a sad fact.

And here’s my opinion: Given that ICU beds need to be rationed, it strikes me that our society should apply some moral intelligence to the issue and make sure that no decent, responsible person is turned away because of a selfish fool.