Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus came with devastating effects on people’s lives and the economy. Its impacts on individuals’ social behavior and delivery of health care have been dramatic. The disease has also led to a huge burden that has resultantly overwhelmed the resources available for health care provision. The distribution of such resources as personal protective equipment, ventilators, investigational therapeutics, and hospital beds, thus, requires making hard decisions. The apportionments are laced with various social issues that need to be comprehensively explored.
Rationing
During the peak of the pandemic, the number of hospitalizations soared to unprecedented levels. In the United States, for instance, at one point in 2020, an average of 133,000 patients were admitted to hospitals daily (Grover, McClelland, & Furnham, 2020). Consequently, healthcare resources, including personnel, were drastically overstretched. To address this, it became necessary to ration many aspects of health care (Zhang, 2021). When the COVID-19 vaccines were first introduced, they were barely enough to meet everyone’s needs. Subsequently, they were reserved for frontline workers such as the health care staff and the most vulnerable, like the elderly.
In some instances, hospitals were forced to ration intensive care unit (ICU) spaces, drug treatments, oxygen, and other medical supplies. The use of supplementary oxygen was forbidden by some healthcare facilities in effect. Other healthcare organizations went further and stopped the transportation of critically ill patients who could not be revived into their facilities. This was meant to create space for patients who needed the treatment more as the crisis levels soared (Kirkpatrick, Hull, Fedson, Mullen, & Goodlin, 2020). Towards this end, some public hospitals in Los Angeles, for instance, appointed triage officers to help identify patients who stood a chance of continued treatment and stay in hospitals.
Shortage of Health Workers
The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the global shortage of healthcare staff. Effectively, many healthcare facilities have suffered massive staff shortages. Moreover, older nurses have been forced into early retirement because of the threats posed by the pandemic. Many more healthcare workers chose to change careers during the height of the pandemic when it became too much for them to bear (Rawlings, Brandt, Ferreres, Asbun, & Shadduck, 2021). Indeed, staffing has been a big issue in the healthcare sector; the COVID-19 pandemic made the situation worse. Additionally, the pandemic caused fatigue and burnout among many healthcare workers (Romero & Bhatt, 2021). To avert the risks posed by many healthcare workers leaving their facilities, some hospitals resorted to offering them hazard pay and bonuses.
Rising Rate of the Uninsured
During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of people lost their jobs. Subsequently, the rapid job losses, many workers lost their health insurance covers, which were mostly employer-based. The uninsured population changed drastically between 2020 and 2021 because of the massive loss of income and jobs (Lebrasseur, Fortin-Bédard, Lettre, & Raymond, 2021). Many healthcare facilities were, hence, starved of funds, further stretching their limited resources. Incidentally, the huge number of patients that were being admitted to various hospitals across the country lacked medical insurance.
Price Gouging
Tragedies such as the COVID-19 pandemic bring out both the best and the worst in people. Healthcare providers have acted as first responders and risen to the challenge of addressing the threats posed by the pandemic. At the same time, there have emerged some bad actors who saw the pandemic as a perfect opportunity to make big business deals and defraud state programs and relief donations and engage in price gouging. In simple terms, price gouging refers to the unfair and unlawful raising of prices. Some businesspeople took advantage of the pandemic to unfairly raise the prices of their goods and services to exceed the normal pricing rates (Boreskie, Boreskie, & Melady, 2020). In addition to raising prices of their commodities, price gouging is also used to describe businesses that suddenly begin to sell new products that they were not selling before to take advantage of a misfortune. Many states have enacted laws meant to prohibit price gouging.
The Aging of the Population
The COVID-19 pandemic proved that the elderly in society are at the greatest risk of contracting the disease. Further, the higher risks of infections among the older age, this population suffers from limited access to health care conditions. The pandemic also drastically changed the daily routines of older people in terms of the support and care they receive as well as their ability to remain socially connected with their peers. The pandemic forced older people to spend mostly time by themselves in lonely homes. They were cut from their families due to a ban on physical contact with friends, colleagues as well as family members (Razu, et al., 2021). They were removed from employment for fear of contracting the disease. Moreover, members of this population were in a constant state of fear and anxiety over illness and even death.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a challenging phenomenon in the healthcare sector. At the height of the disease, healthcare facilities across the world were overstretched with patients beyond their capacities to handle. To cope with the astronomical numbers, it became apparent that tough decisions on resource allocation had to be made. This gave rise to the adoption of such measures as rationing treatment and restricting admissions, and price grouping. Indeed, all these efforts have effectively contributed to lessening the threats posed by the pandemic.
References
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