Triage for Seniors

Triage for Seniors
 

Definition of Triage: “The assignment of degrees of urgency to wounds or illnesses to decide the order of treatment of a large number of patients or casualties.”  Example:  In Italy there are many Wuhan Virus patients who need respirators, but there are not enough for everybody.  So, a nurse may decide which patient gets the respirator and which one dies.  In one example, a nurse in Italy had to decide whether a 20-year-old or an 80 year-old got the respirator.  The nurse chose the 20-year-old because he had his whole life ahead of him, and the 80-year-old only had a few years of life left.  So, the decision was based on age and the 80-year old died.

But, suppose the choice had been between a man and a woman.  Or, between twins or a powerful politician vs a non-politician or between members of different races.  The decision in those cases would be much more difficult.  I don’t envy the poor nurse or doctor who is responsible for making such critical decisions. 

Of course, there will also be the psychopaths who will enjoy having such power and might use triage as an excuse to murder their real or imagined enemies — as tyrants have done throughout history.

However, suppose we were given the job to design a program to make a more enlightened triage decisions.  We might decide that instead of using age alone, we might decide that other factors — such as their contribution to civilization -- as a key factor in making such decisions.  Wouldn’t someone who invents a vaccine for the Wuhan virus be given priority over an imbecile?

As I understand, in China, they already have a citizen ranking system where a person can get demerits for politically incorrect activities or bonus points for politically positive ones.  Such a system could be handy for the budding tyrants of this world in making triage decisions.

My point is that using such a simplistic criteria as age, might not be best.  There might be some 80-year-olds more deserving of life than some 20-year-olds.  For many of us, our life is our most precious commodity.  There are moral and economic criteria that might be employed in a truly civilized society.

Or, we could base this decision on some kind of victimization scale so that the higher on this scale the less likely you might be to elimination.  For example, a black, homosexual woman might be much higher on this scale than an oriental, straight man -- with many gradations in between.  At the absolute bottom of this scale might be an unborn, human -- whose life currently has almost no value at all.

Yes, our current battle against the Wuhan Virus is a war and triage decisions must often be made quickly — just like on the battle field where a medic must decide which soldier's life can be saved and which cannot.

I also understand that the economy of the world is very important.  So, there may soon be great pressure exerted on our politicians to end restrictions on travel, quarantines and lock-downs so we can all get back to work.  But, at whose expense?  Can there be any doubt that our seniors will bear the brunt of the pain and death — because our young are largely immune to the virus.  As infected, asymptomatic young folks are allowed to roam freely among our senior citizens, more and more seniors a likely to become infected.  Are our seniors expendable?  Of course, no politician is likely to say in public that we must choose between the market and our senior's lives, but that could be part of the consequences of prematurely ending our current restrictions. 

So, the solution to this world-wide pandemic might be as simple as asking everyone over the age of 60 to commit suicide.  OK, that solution may be seen as being a little extreme, but some hospitals are already considering universal do-not-resuscitate orders.  Just saying.

Also, as an 83-year-old, I cannot claim to be totally unbiased and rigidly objective about this subject, but it does seem to be a subject worthy of some consideration.

Maybe in the final analysis, we may rename this virus the “Chinese Senior’s Virus” because us codgers are most susceptible to it.  Consider the possibility that we might someday build a monument in Washington to the seniors who "sacrificed" their lives for the good of our nation.

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