Imagining and Preparing for the Aftermath of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Justification for Taking Caring Responsibilities into Consideration when Allocating Scarce Resources

AbstractVarious models have been used to “emplot” our collective experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the epidemiological curve, threshold models, and narrative. Drawing on a threshold model that was designed to frame resource-allocation decisions in clinical care, I offer an ethical justification for taking caring responsibi lities into consideration in such decisions during pandemics. My basic argument is that we should prioritize the survival of patients with caring responsibilities for similar reasons we should prioritize the survival of healthcare professionals. More generally, the pandemic reveals the fundamental i mportance of informal care and affords an opportunity to raise questions of justice relating to it.
Source: Journal of Bioethical Inquiry - Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research