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Kill both the advice and understanding of ethicists.
It attracted considerable attention when the committee that should prioritize who should get vaccinated first concluded last week that health workers should not be prioritized.
The committee also believed that it was not a goal to get the pandemic under control as soon as possible, and that normal prioritization should be set aside. The committee was of the opinion that it is irrelevant how many years of healthy life a patient can have.
Also read: – If we vaccinate these groups, we can reopen society
Now, six anesthesiologists participate in a joint discussion in the Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association and discuss the priorities that have been set.
At the helm is the leader of the Norwegian Association of Anesthesiology, Jon Henrik Laake.
– In the recommendation of the National Institute of Public Health on who should be given priority for coronary vaccination, health personnel are not at the forefront. This is contrary to standard practice and international recommendations, and should not be taken into account, the doctors write.
Anesthesiologists are very close to treating the most seriously ill coronary patients.
– Contrary to usual practice
Doctors believe that it is quite obvious that health professionals should be given priority:
– The proposal of the group of experts is contrary to the usual practice in epidemics. It is common for health personnel in an advanced position (with a high risk of becoming infected and infecting others) to be given the highest priority when the population is to be vaccinated. There are three main reasons for this:
- First of all, healthcare professionals, like all other workers, have a general requirement of protection when they are asked to perform work that could endanger their own life and health.
- Second, infection and illness among healthcare professionals may mean that important healthcare services cannot be performed.
- Third, healthcare professionals who are not protected by the vaccine could infect their patients and therefore pose a risk to the health of vulnerable patient groups.
They note that many doctors in other countries have lost their lives as a result of their work with corona patients. They also point out that, among other things, Ullevål’s eye department had to close this spring due to outbreaks and quarantine.
– It is morally problematic to ask a group of citizens to do work that involves a well-documented health risk and, at the same time, deny them the best possible protection against disease. For those employed in that job, it doesn’t matter much what the general spread of the infection is in the surrounding society: In a hospital ward treating coronary patients, the risk of infection is high in any case, the doctors write.
Experienced offense
Doctors are not only dissatisfied with the actual prioritization proposal of the ethicists, they believe that the group is very poorly composed:
– In the group of experts, we do not find doctors, and the affected parties, that is, representatives of patients and relatives, other employees of the health sector and representatives of other parts of society, are conspicuous by their absence, the doctors write.
– It is generally recognized that safeguarding the physical and mental health of employees is of vital importance in the event of serious epidemics. This spring, employees of the country’s hospitals have had to feel the consequences of inadequate access to infection control equipment. We have been informed that it can be important to use poor emergency technical solutions in treating patients, and now a committee of experts informs us that we must be carefully at the end of the line when vaccines are to be administered. This reveals an instrumental attitude towards health service employees and can rightly be perceived as offensive.
Also read: Infection rates in Oslo are stabilizing: this district stands out
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