But not the way they'd like. There's more and more talk, even within the medical community itself, who had always historically treated everyone equally when treatment was necessary, about giving the anti-vaxxers less priority. That is the discussion below, feelings within the health care community.
Public outrage over the unvaccinated is driving a crisis in bioethics | CBC News It's a long article so I've copied a few snippets below.
"The core fundamental principle of clinical ethics tells us that once a person enters the hospital as a patient, whatever got them there is no longer part of the equation," said Vardit Ravitsky, who teaches bioethics at the Université de Montreal and Harvard Medical School.
"The most extreme example I have ever seen was when I lived in Israel and a suicide bomber detonated on a bus, killing and injuring civilians around him. Somehow he was not killed by the explosion and he arrived at the hospital with his victims.
"Once they entered the hospital, everyone was treated equally. There was no sense of prioritizing the victims in relation to the person who caused the injury."
Vaccinated majorities in wealthy western countries are growing increasingly impatient with a science-denying minority being blamed for prolonging the pandemic and stretching critical care resources to the breaking point.
Governments are responding to that anger by turning up the heat on the unvaccinated with policies intended to inconvenience them, curtail their social lives, drive them out of the public square, make them pay or even criminalize them — measures Ravitsky said are "politically meant to appease the vaccinated majority."
"Usually, bioethics is all about protecting and promoting the right of each patient to make their own decisions," she said. "And all of a sudden we find ourselves in a situation where the common good should sometimes be prioritized, and that has caused some unprecedented disagreements within the bioethics community."
"If we have two patients with the same level of clinical need, same age, same context, but one is vaccinated and one isn't, could we de-prioritize the patient who is unvaccinated by choice? There is a minority of bioethicists who are becoming more accepting of this logic at this point in time."
Dr. Vipond acknowledges it's a hard pill to swallow when people who claim to distrust the medical establishment, and refuse to get vaccinated against COVID, show up demanding medical treatment.
"The reality is we're all human. So we have those thoughts that go through the back of our mind and it really takes a conscious effort to put those aside and just provide the best care," he said.
Udo Schuklenk, Ontario Research Chair in bioethics at Queens University and co-editor of the journal Bioethics, questions the argument that vaccine refusers are victims of misinformation.
"There's many people in my field who go on about equity considerations, and [how] these people don't know better and they have been misled," he said. "And my view is, they have made their autonomous choice.
"And if you're telling me that they are unable to make a sensible choice, then we should take this choice away from them. But we should not, on the one hand, give them this choice, and then not hold them accountable for it.
.....they'd say there's many people who don't know better and have been misled. And my point is, that may well be true, but then this should have a consequence on the kind of choices that these people are permitted to make."
"We know what doctors would say ... they would say the same thing that I would tell you," he said. (Treat them all the same) "However, when you talk to the people that actually finance these health care systems — the citizens, the people — overwhelmingly, they tell you that you should discriminate against people that are unvaccinated.
"That raises really interesting questions about democracy. It may be that the doctors are the gatekeepers, but the truth is that we pay the bills. So if the vast majority of people in the country think that should happen, should that have an impact?
Public outrage over the unvaccinated is driving a crisis in bioethics | CBC News It's a long article so I've copied a few snippets below.
"The core fundamental principle of clinical ethics tells us that once a person enters the hospital as a patient, whatever got them there is no longer part of the equation," said Vardit Ravitsky, who teaches bioethics at the Université de Montreal and Harvard Medical School.
"The most extreme example I have ever seen was when I lived in Israel and a suicide bomber detonated on a bus, killing and injuring civilians around him. Somehow he was not killed by the explosion and he arrived at the hospital with his victims.
"Once they entered the hospital, everyone was treated equally. There was no sense of prioritizing the victims in relation to the person who caused the injury."
Vaccinated majorities in wealthy western countries are growing increasingly impatient with a science-denying minority being blamed for prolonging the pandemic and stretching critical care resources to the breaking point.
Governments are responding to that anger by turning up the heat on the unvaccinated with policies intended to inconvenience them, curtail their social lives, drive them out of the public square, make them pay or even criminalize them — measures Ravitsky said are "politically meant to appease the vaccinated majority."
"Usually, bioethics is all about protecting and promoting the right of each patient to make their own decisions," she said. "And all of a sudden we find ourselves in a situation where the common good should sometimes be prioritized, and that has caused some unprecedented disagreements within the bioethics community."
"If we have two patients with the same level of clinical need, same age, same context, but one is vaccinated and one isn't, could we de-prioritize the patient who is unvaccinated by choice? There is a minority of bioethicists who are becoming more accepting of this logic at this point in time."
Dr. Vipond acknowledges it's a hard pill to swallow when people who claim to distrust the medical establishment, and refuse to get vaccinated against COVID, show up demanding medical treatment.
"The reality is we're all human. So we have those thoughts that go through the back of our mind and it really takes a conscious effort to put those aside and just provide the best care," he said.
Udo Schuklenk, Ontario Research Chair in bioethics at Queens University and co-editor of the journal Bioethics, questions the argument that vaccine refusers are victims of misinformation.
"There's many people in my field who go on about equity considerations, and [how] these people don't know better and they have been misled," he said. "And my view is, they have made their autonomous choice.
"And if you're telling me that they are unable to make a sensible choice, then we should take this choice away from them. But we should not, on the one hand, give them this choice, and then not hold them accountable for it.
.....they'd say there's many people who don't know better and have been misled. And my point is, that may well be true, but then this should have a consequence on the kind of choices that these people are permitted to make."
"We know what doctors would say ... they would say the same thing that I would tell you," he said. (Treat them all the same) "However, when you talk to the people that actually finance these health care systems — the citizens, the people — overwhelmingly, they tell you that you should discriminate against people that are unvaccinated.
"That raises really interesting questions about democracy. It may be that the doctors are the gatekeepers, but the truth is that we pay the bills. So if the vast majority of people in the country think that should happen, should that have an impact?
