Letter to the editor – July 6, 2020

Dear editor, 

As a physician, I worry I may soon be forced to decide between sending a nursing home patient or a younger person who has come down with COVID-19 to the hospital because of limited space. 

I worry that I’ll have to make a decision on which patient needing to be put on a respirator will be transferred to the city when city hospitals have limited space and can only accept one person, not two. Will I make that decision based on whether that person is married with children or whether they are single?

I worry about how I decide which nurse gets an N95 mask and which gets the plain surgical mask to see the sick COVID patient. Is it the young nurse with children and a family or the new graduate who has no family?

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