Bristol, TN—June 26, 2020: The Tennessee-based, 18,000-member
Christian Medical Association (CMA, www.cmda.org)
today applauded a Tennessee patient protection policy announced
this afternoon by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office
of Civil Rights (OCR) and developed collaboratively between HHS, the state of
Tennessee and disability rights groups.
CMA's Executive Vice President for Bioethics and Public Policy,
Dr. Jeffrey Barrows, noted, "Patients with disabilities face even greater
challenges than others during a pandemic, and we're thankful that both the
federal government and the state of Tennessee are standing in the gap to
protect the civil rights of all Americans. No person with a disability should
have to fear that a government will assign their lives a lower value simply
because they live with physical challenges."
The policy, announced today by HHS, reportedly incorporates
crucial protections into the state's Crisis Standards of Care plan, stipulating
that factors such as age or disability should not be used as criteria in
determining the allocation of scarce resources. The policy also protects vulnerable
patients who require additional resources from automatically being assigned a
lower priority to receive lifesaving care.
Working with the HHS OCR, the state agreed to remove language
permitting the use of a patient's long-term life expectancy as a factor in
determining assignment of scarce resources. The policy also stipulates that
long-term ventilator users will be protected from having their own ventilators
taken from them and given to someone else.
Dr. Barrows, an Obstetrician-Gynecologist, observed, "Every human
life is of immeasurable worth at every stage of life, regardless of physical
challenges. We congratulate the HHS Office of Civil Rights for ensuring the
civil rights of persons with disabilities. We also encourage the Department to ensure
that civil rights are extended to vulnerable persons of all ages, including
babies born prematurely."
No comments:
Post a Comment