Reference no: EM133385932

Question: With today's medical advances, patients are living longer, and patients who are very sick can be kept alive in a vegetative state for long periods of time. A patient in a vegetative state on life support in the intensive care unit being kept alive by machines poses an ethical dilemma that many critical care nurses are faced with. Many nurses end up in conflict with families when this dilemma comes up due to the fact that keeping people alive when there is no hope seems inhumane (Gómez-Vírseda et al., 2019). In my opinion, when there is little to no chance of recovery, the patients should not be kept alive. It is a waste of healthcare dollars and nursing resources. In time, multiorgan dysfunction and sepsis will take over and make the decision for them. It is unethical, in my opinion, to sustain life when there is no hope. Families, especially those with no medical background often keep family members alive because of guilt, and will not listen to reason when the situation is presented to them. The resources being wasted on keeping someone with no hope alive could be allocated to other patients that could use them and gain something positive from them (Mentzelopoulos et al., 2021).

During the COVID pandemic, many resources were scarce and had to be allocated. Resources should be allocated according to need. In my opinion, not all resources should be distributed according to the social determinants of health. Disadvantaged persons might not use the resources allocated to them due to a lack of access to healthcare, or low health literacy. There could potentially be cultural barriers that prevent them from using allocated resources. If that is the case, the resources need to be redistributed. This situation is very similar to patient triage during a disaster, it does not always seem fair, but those who have a chance of living to receive the help and the resources, and those who are not going to make it get triaged out (Laventhal et al., 2020).