In recent days, the Ministry of Health in Mexico presented the “Triage Guide Project for the Allocation of Critical Medicine Resources” which, if approved by the General Health Council, it would be a bioethical guide for decision making when a public health emergency generates a demand for resources of critical medicine, which cannot be satisfied.
The priest Silvio Marinelli, director of the Centro San Camilo A.C. from Guadalajara, which has as one of its objectives contribute to promoting sensitivity and solidarity towards the sick, made it clear that this bioethical guide would only come into operation if the ability to respond to critical care is exceeded, and hoped that this is not the case.
On the possibility that it is a group of people who decide who should be given critical medicine resources, and not the treating doctors, Marinelli does not see the idea as far-fetched, for three reasons: to avoid conflict of interest; to have homogeneous criteria throughout the country and to logistically organize aid in different hospitals; “It will have its drawbacks the fact of not knowing people, because it can be impersonal, but I do not feel negative in itself,” he said.
The priest explains that In emergency situations, these types of guides have always been made and will always be: “You cannot give a complete and good answer to everyone, so there must be some criteria to decide how to deal with the situation.”
Referring to the concept of “lives-to-be-completed”, which is discussed in the proposed guide, the priest indicated that this is a principle little known in the Latin world; “In the United States they use it a lot, but at the bioethical level it is a not very shared criterion. Another criterion was used, which was the quality of life or life expectancy“
Do not reach these crossroads
Regarding the point of palliative care, noted that “it is not new, since since 2009 it is foreseen by law; it is something that should be done with all patients who are approaching death. ”
And when commenting on the possibility of the patient saying goodbye to his patients, Marinelli considered that “it is about being more attentive, and it can be through the cell phone, video calls; It does not seem to me an impossible thing to do, to carry it out, it is about being more attentive to the human, psychological and spiritual dimension of the person ”.
Finally, he trusted that this situation of scarcity does not occur, and “that containment measures also allow us to supply all the needs of this extraordinary situation, not to take it for granted; try to avoid reaching this level of scarcity and saturation of critical medicine services ”.
He added that “despite the insufficiencies that the guide document may have, it is necessary to be able to decide in a legally homogeneous manner in the national territory, and also with criteria that are legally binding; we are left sadness and bitterness to reach these decisions; a good health system would allow us not to reach these crossroads always difficult to face. “
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