Fox News Doc: It's Time For COVID-19 Patients To 'Come Off' Ventilators And Either Survive Or Die

[Igel]

32. It's one way of acknowledging reality.

If you have 100 people on life support indefinitely with virtually no chance of recovery, it's a problem.

It's bad enough when they're vegetative or in a coma. When they're conscious and can't hardly move, have to be catheterized and intubated, it's hell. https://epmonthly.com/article/post-intubation-sedation-the-tube-is-in-now-what/ Think of what that would be from the patient's perspective, not the ER doctor's.

It would also be hell to have to tell somebody whose conscious that the odds are close to zero they'd ever breathe without the machine, so the option is they stay intubated, taking an ICU bed, for the rest of their lives, possibly in pain, or they're removed and they live or die.

Worse is when there are limited resources. It's why some states have end-of-life options for hospitals. TX allows this: If a hospital determines that a patient will not recover and is just using resources, whether or not they can pay, they can be disconnected. If the family can arrange for alternative treatment in another hospital, great.

I'm not sure the alternative is appealing. Let's say that NYC has all the ventilators that Cuomo wants in use--30k patients. 90% don't come off. That's 27,000 people. On ventilators. Where do you put the 27,000 people? Giant warehouses of people with hard tubes down their bronchial tubes, unable to talk, sedated or doped because the tubes hurt, not mobile? And you keep them there for years, with visitation rights for their families? Farm them out for families to manage?

Reality bites.