Intensive care for coronavirus patients is now being limited to those “reasonably certain” to survive, the NHS London trust said, according to The Telegraph. As the number of patients who need ventilator treatment increases, some patients less likely to survive will no longer receive the "benefit of the doubt".
"In normal times we will give most people the benefit of the doubt. That has changed", an unnamed senior consultant said, cited by The Telegraph. “With this infection you need a couple of weeks on a ventilator, so with resources being used for such a long time, you have to be reasonably certain the person is going to get better".
Imperial College Healthcare, while reportedly acknowledging that “very poorly patients with coronavirus may need to be on a ventilator for extended periods", and noting that "for some patients this would not be in their best interests”, denied that people were not receiving care due to a lack of capacity.
The NHS allegedly has some 8,000 ventilators, and the government is desperately trying to source another 30,000 to cope with the rapidly rising numbers of new patients infected with the novel coronavirus.
The United Kingdom has over 19,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with more than 1,200 fatalities, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Centre. UK PM Boris Johnson has urged citizens to "stay home, save lives" to slow the spread of the disease. Earlier, he confirmed that he had tested positive for the coronavirus.