Introduction
The nurse’s primary role during the COVID-19 pandemic was to ensure that patients’ survival rates increased. Ventilators are essential equipment that helps to increase patient survival rates. However, when the pandemic was at its peak, more patients than ventilators were available.
Main Body
Nurses, therefore, had to choose the best strategy to share the limited ventilators (Orfali, 2020). Various methods may be used to share the devices, such as first come, first served, lottery, and prioritizing those likely to survive. The most appealing method is prioritizing the people who have higher chances of survival because it is in congruence with the medical practitioner’s core responsibility.
The overall survival rates for patients constitute the critical mandate of medical practitioners. All the other methods of sharing ventilators lower the chances of survival because it does not guarantee the safety of the patients who are allocated the medical equipment. For example, a person who comes later may have higher chances of survival than someone who comes fast. The principle of first-come-first-served may jeopardize the survival rate of both patients. Further, since the efficient use of resources is to save the maximum number of lives of people suffering from the pandemic, prioritizing is critical to helping the hospitals achieve the target of serving the highest number of people.
Although the method may appear biased, as people diagnosed first may miss the equipment because they have a lower chance of survival, triaging patients is critical because it increases the survival rate. Further, the method is helpful as it improves the hospital’s positive outcome. The survival rate maintains the hospital’s reputation in response to the number of admitted patients.
Conclusion
Unlike the other methods likely to endanger the lives of people with a higher chance of survival, the selected method assures survival as the ventilator to people with higher chances of survival (Orfali, 2020). Giving priority to people with high chances of survival increases the hospital’s reputation, public confidence, and fulfillment of nurses’ mandate.
References
Orfali, K. (2020). What triage issues reveal: Ethics in the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy and France. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, pp. 17, 675–679. Web.