Bioethicist On State’s Guidance For Potentially Rationing Ventilators: Intent Is To Be “Fair And Equitable”
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health on Tuesday released guidelines for hospitals to help medical staff prepare for possible resource-rationing if the flood of coronavirus patients ever overruns the number of available ventilators, ICU beds, and staff. The grim preparations, which are not mandatory, come as a widely-cited predictive model from the Institute for Health Metrics & Evaluation anticipates that Massachusetts will be short some 3,000 beds — including about 1,500 ICU beds — at the state's peak of COVID-19 cases. Jim Braude joined Dr. Robert Truog, the director of Harvard Medical School’s Center for Bioethics, who was involved in crafting the state’s deadlines, to discuss them.
As Death Toll Reaches 27 At Soldiers’ Home In Holyoke, Longtime Staffer Says She Doesn’t Feel Safe
Twenty-seven veterans have now died in the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home, with twenty of them confirmed to have died of coronavirus. The facility’s superintendent has been placed on leave and state health officials have made changes to try and contain the outbreak in the nursing home for veterans — but some staff there say that concerns about staffing shortages at the Home have been voiced, and ignored, for five years. Jim Braude spoke with nursing aide Erin Saykin, an employee at the Home who raised alarms about longstanding issues there and who is now at home recuperating from COVID-19.
“They don’t have any of ours’ or our vets’ safety as a top priority right now,” said Saykin.
Tom Rush On Overcoming His Coronavirus Diagnosis & Late Folk Legend John Prine
Among the more than 1,300 Americans who have died from coronavirus have been some household names of people who have brought us joy through music over the decades: jazz trumpeter Wallace Roney, jazz pianist Ellis Marsalis and folk singer-songwriter John Prine. Jim Braude joined singer-songwriter Tom Rush, who is recovering from coronavirus himself.
