MARLTON, N.J. (KYW Newsradio) — New Jersey health officials have issued new rules for hospitals to follow in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. They address who gets cared for if equipment, medicine and staffing become scarce.
The Crisis Standards of Care protocols provide an objective standard by which hospitals can decide who gets treatment when situations get very critical.
That situation may well be playing out up in North Jersey and New York. Not here. Not yet anyway and Dr. Reg Blaber, chief clinical officer at Virtua Health, hopes it never does.
"We signed up to help people. The thought of having to make a decision as to who lives or who dies? That's not really what we signed up for," Blaber told KYW Newsradio. "So it's really important to prepare. It's really important to have these standards. I'm just hoping we never have to use it."
If it comes to that, the guidance from the state calls for each hospital to form a triage committee to make that decision for an individual physician, which can be appealed if the committee needs to review new information on a case. And with this virus, there are still far more questions than answers.
