Status: 06/14/2022 3:13 p.m
According to a media report, Minister of Health Lauterbach has presented a draft law for triage. According to this, only the probability of survival of patients should decide who receives medical care first.
Age, frailty, ethnic origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation or a disability should not lead to a disadvantage in access to intensive care in the case of triage. These are “not suitable criteria” for assessing the probability of survival, according to a draft amendment to the Infection Protection Act by Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD), about which the Funke media group reports.
If there are more corona intensive care patients than treatment places in an acute pandemic situation, the decision as to which patient is treated may “only be made on the basis of the current and short-term probability of survival of the patients concerned,” says the draft.
Triage
In medicine, triage is a method used to select who is treated first in emergencies or pandemics. For example, the chance of survival can play a role. The word triage comes from the French verb “trier” which means “to sort” or “to select”.
The term was originally coined by military medicine, but is now also used in emergency medicine or civil defense. In the military context, it was also a matter of treating the soldiers first, who could be made fit to fight again quickly.
Two intensive care physicians should decide per case
Should a triage decision become necessary, it should be “made by mutual agreement between two specialists who have been practicing intensive care medicine for several years and have additional training in intensive care medicine”. According to the draft law, both must assess the patients independently of one another.
If people with disabilities or previous illnesses are affected by the allocation decision, “the assessment of another person who has been consulted with the appropriate specialist expertise for the disability or previous illness” must be consulted.
According to the draft, ongoing intensive medical care for corona patients must not be interrupted, even if the chances of survival of another Covid patient are classified as better. The clinics are also called upon, as before, to examine all other options to create space in the intensive care units, for example by transferring patients to other hospitals or “by postponing plannable, non-time-critical operations”.
Lauterbach: Follow Federal Constitutional Court
According to the Funke newspapers, Lauterbach said that with the draft the federal government was following the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court. At the same time, he emphasized that in Germany so far all corona waves had been prevented, “that triage became part of everyday practice. That should remain the case in the third Corona fall”.