Italy lies somewhere close to the center of the coronavirus storm and the latest worrying news from the country is that patients who are 80 or older will not receive intensive care if the crisis worsens.
The Daily Telegraph say that under emergency plans being proposed in Turin, draw up by civil protection officials, warn: “it will be necessary to apply criteria for access to intensive treatment”.
Included in this criteria, as per reports, is that people eligible for intensive treatment “must include age of less than 80”.
Doctors have already described having to make life-or-death decisions regarding who can be treated and who may be left to die.
Prime minister Giuseppe Conte meanwhile warned that Italy is entering its ‘riskiest weeks’, stating that the worst may yet be to come.
The planning document also details how a patient’s other health conditions will be taken into account when beds in the intensive care unit are allocated.
“Should it become impossible to provide all patients with intensive care services, it will be necessary to apply criteria for access to intensive treatment, which depends on the limited resources available,” reads the document.
Italian medics have described how hospitals have been swamped by the current health crisis. The country has suffered the worst outbreak on the continent, with upwards of 24,000 cases.
As the virus continues to spread, countries are moving to try and limit its devastation. With fears that things haven’t yet got to their worst, however, we wait with baited to breath for the next few weeks.
Put your hands together in prayer for all those suffering from coronavirus. Including the poor souls locked in quarantine in Italy.
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