When Medical Care Collapses, Who Gets Saved First?
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By :
Nick Adama
Submitted
2009-07-02 12:29:33 |
One of the first concepts of responding to an emergency that first responders, first aid workers, and the military learns is triage -- differentiating between the dead or the merely wounded and deciding which survivors of a disaster should be given assistance first. But in an emergency where no medical care is available and the ambulances have run out of supplies, this process may be reversed.
In most situations where it is only a matter of time before a wounded person can get to a hospital via car, ambulance, or helicopter, the first responders in an emergency will attempt to stabilize the most seriously injured. All efforts are made to help those most in need, while the walking wounded and those not likely to die right away are left alone, to be assisted later on.
But the assumption underlying such regular triage efforts is that it is best to help the most seriously hurt and keep them alive until specialized care is available again. It is only a matter of stabilizing the dying or gravely wounded; once the ambulance arrives at the scene, the paramedics will take them to the emergency room where a team of professionals will stick them full of painkillers and fix the problem.
In the class I took recently about medical emergencies in the absence of specialized care, though, this system of triage is reversed. The people with the worst injuries may not be able to be cared for because it is far less likely they will survive. Without a virtually unlimited amount of medical supplies, bandages, anesthetics, and equipment, it becomes an issue of providing care to the people most likely to survive -- not least likely.
This is due to the simple reason that, if there is expected to be a shortage of medical care for a long period of time (over 72 hours), supplies will need to be rationed in order to provide the greatest number of people the best chance to survive over the long term. Medications and bandages can not be used up completely on one seriously wounded person if there are more people that can be saved with less grave injuries.
In fact, the class taught me that it is better to treat the people least injured because they will have the greatest chance of surviving for the long term. Someone already dying may be given a few extra days to live, but if the resources expended to do so preclude helping others, tough choices will have to be made by those with any medical training at all. And the shock of an emergency will make these choices even more difficult.
Of course, this makes for some obviously very tough decisions about friends, family members, and neighbors. When you can not save everyone, who gets medical treatment first? It may not be plausible to use the time and supplies necessary if there is only a small chance of saving a life. Those are supplies that may be in short order in the future and can be used on people in less dire circumstances.
Unfortunately, these issues are ones that people will need to begin thinking about more often, as the government has proved that it is incapable of providing people after emergencies with necessary assistance. Too many homeowners saw their properties destroyed or robbed during recent hurricanes, and that was only if they were lucky enough to survive the disaster without dying of drowning, trauma, or dysentery. |
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Author Resource:-
Nick writes articles providing foreclosure help and solutions to homeonwers who are at risk of losing their properties. His sites describe various solutions to saving a home, including extensive sections on how to qualify for a loan modification that will not almost certainly default. Visit his site now to read more about how foreclosure works and how a mortgage modification will benefit you: http://www.foreclosurefish.com/ |
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