Opinion
Who gets left behind when we are forced to triage scarce health resources?
By Roxanne Mykitiuk and Trudo Lemmens April 27, 2020
It always requires some effort to safeguard human rights. But it can take a pandemic to force our hand and lay bare the depth of our commitment.
Canada's federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu, pictured at the National Press Theatre in Ottawa on Feb. 6, 2020. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade
With rapidly rising infection rates due to COVID19, provincial and territorial health care officials are bracing themselves for situations of extreme shortage of critical care beds, medical equipment and personnel necessary to treat the sickest of the sick in hospital settings. In a pandemic setting, triage is the allocation of treatment and scarce resources to patients according to a pre-determined set of criteria or priorities in order to achieve a specific goal.
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