Disabled people were to be denied ventilators

[Moomin8]

www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/coronavirus-guidelines-u-turn-after-17992694

I have an autistic daughter in a care home and this made my blood run cold.

Thanks @Moomin8, the original guidelines were shocking and left me afraid to leave the house ar all for fear of my 16 year old son getting infected

Horrible. As if a new eugenics is emerging almost overnight.

Something similar was reported from America last week too.

Well I do hope that it's no longer the case.

My daughter is in an excellent care home and the staff love her. I think they would fight for her as much as I would.

I'm autistic myself too - makes you wonder doesn't it.

Wow

The only relevance of frailty should be in relation to whether the person is likely to be able to "pull through" if given critical care. Shocking that an elderly person who has become too weak to perform their own personal care, could be given the same score as a young, fit person who needs some help because of say a learning disability or the fact they'd lost a limb or something. In terms of ability to fight the virus, they're worlds apart!

Well, when ordinary people - including MNers - are prepared to write off all the elderly and all those with health conditions,

rather than stay in lockdown,
the original guideline is not surprising

The CV crisis has brought support for eugenics into the open in a way I never thought I'd see.
People probably have always thought like, but now the lockdown has emboldened them to post openly.

Oh no that’s absolutely heartbreaking how could they even think about such a thing

My eldest has Autism, plus many other conditions. She is also loving caring and highly intelligent (level 9s in all her GCSEs) yet she would potentially have been cast aside just because of what she has/is on paper ? It’s utterly disgusting it’s made me quite tearful to think they could make such a generalisation about a huge group of people every one of whom has as much right to live as anyone else and as much to give to the world

I thought it was those most likely to survive would get the ventilations. It would not be something done lightly, only in absolute desperation.

with respect their are some terrible statistics on life span & learning disability - which makes my blood run cold - basically a combination of lack of help getting health/clinical care & assumptions & the individual being unable to either understand/co-operate/having the ability to advocate for themselves - true for anybody who has any form of difficulty in communication (whether LD ASD MH Hearing Loss/deaf etc) so does this surprise me Cummins viewpoint runs right through the political power at this time

What I think people are missing with this is that by the time you get to applying this type of guideline as a hard rule, clinicians are having to make generalisations about everyone. If you get to the point where an autism diagnosis an automatic no, you're probably also at the point where asthma is a no. Plenty of professional sports people have an asthma diagnosis - are they not fit enough to fight this off?

This is why we need to abide by the guidelines and try to avoid the situation where blanket decisions based on hard cut offs need to be taken. Adhere to guidelines and perhaps we give enough space for doctors to evaluate based on the individual rather than a label or a diagnosis.

To be honest, I wouldn’t peg the daily post as an accurate source of information

As far as I’m aware Coronavirus predominantly affects the lungs so it seems irrelevant to use any kind of learning disability/autism/mental health criteria as a tool with which to decide who gets treatment and who doesn’t ?
As far as I’m concerned it’s a bit like saying ‘you aren’t eligible for a kidney transplant because you once broke a finger’ or ‘we won’t offer you breast screening for a lump as you once had depression’

www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng159/resources/covid19-rapid-guideline-critical-care-in-adults-pdf-66141848681413

Link to the NICE guidelines.

www.learningdisabilitytoday.co.uk/people-with-learning-disabilities-have-significantly-lower-life-expectancy-than-the-general-population
there are some pretty depressing/appalling stats for ASD too

Would they deny someone like Stephen Hawking a ventilator but instead give it a man who had caught CV when he was rolling around on the ground fighting over toilet paper? After all the man, although a total idiot and a drain on society, is young, otherwise healthy and the father of many children - which he might someday bother supporting.

For goodness sake, disabled people are just as worthy of trying to save. Unless the person is too far gone for help, ventilators should be used on a first come first served bases.

Someone as medically frail as Stephen Hawkins was for the last years of his life would medically be far less likely to benefit from a ventilator.

ventilators should be used on a first come first served bases

That's a pretty ridiculous suggestion.

You'd probably have the "stupider" toilet roll guy who didn't care about social distancing catching it long before the "smarter" guy who did care.

But by your own admission stupid guy would get one and smarter guy wouldn't.

Then you'd have all the doctors and nurses whose viral load had piled up coming along after without a hope in hells chance of getting one.

People need to be realistic and sensible. The average time of ventilation is what, 16 days? If you have a 90 year old on a ventilator for a month with a 50% chance of survival, BUT you could use that same ventilator for 4 twenty year olds who needed a week each with an 85% chance of survival... where would you put the ventilator?

They're going to prioritise those who have the most chance of recovering. Doesn't matter if you're a rocket scientist or a deadbeat dad on JSA.

It's terrifying that those original guidelines ever saw the light of day. What the hell goes on at NICE?

I also don't really understand the frailty score anyway. If someone is admitted in a hurry they won't have medical notes, no family with them, and they are likely half conscious and struggling with breathing...what are they going to do to establish who needs what help in normal life or has what level of frailty but those criteria?

i can remember when babies with downs syndrome who could have benefited from heart surgery were routinely denied it, merely on the grounds that they had downs, ie were not worth the medical attention and expenditure.
it was even sometimes presented as a merciful thing, for the baby and for the parents, as the child would not live long, and so the parents would be free of the burden.
thank goodness we no longer regard doctors as gods.

Ventilation / ICU can cause a laundary list of conditions such as ptsd, psychosis (permanent or temporary) and dementia in survivors. I read a statistic once that up to 50% of survivors develop new mental and / or physical health symptoms. If you add a relevant pre-existing illness to that then I imagine ICU may make some disabled people’s lives unbearable.

For example a friend has a son with severe autism. The boy is young and outwardly healthy but he can’t exercise for fear of his running away and he is unable to communicate except in specific ways - his parents worst nightmare is if he caught CV and then got dementia or psychosis on top which stopped that.

@alexdgr8 how awful and sad

There is a lot of undervaluing of disabled people's lives. I know there is research that shows on a scale of 1 to 100 that 2 years after becoming paraplegic, people's unhappiness is only 1 point below their happiness level before becoming paraplegic.
Serious disability changes your life, that does not mean that is not a life that can be happy and worth living.

That stat about 50% of people on ventilators is rubbish. Ventilators used to cause lots of other issues, but in recent years the process has been refined and improved. The most common impact is risk of pneumonia.
Other cited things like dementia used to be a risk when the amount of oxygen to give was a far less exact science.
About 60% of people in general on a ventilator survive. That is high considering you have to be very ill in the first place to be on one.

This is absolutely disgusting! I dearly wish I hadn’t read it.

I have been so afraid for my toddler right from the beginning. On paper- Cerebral Palsy, Global Development Delay, Autism, Sensory Processing Disorder, Hearing and Visual impairment, Tube Fed, Complex Medical Needs inc respiratory condition. In real life, the most affectionate, happy, bonkers, loving and content toddler you could ever meet. I learn something from him everyday, he absolutely loves life. My little man has already fought so hard just to be here and just because his life looks different to other toddlers it does not have less value.

It is time we stop seeing those with additional needs as less than. This would have been the same as choosing based on skin colour, gender or any other thing we actually have no choice of control over.

Rant over! Sorry all

the original guidelines were shocking...As if a new eugenics is emerging almost overnight...Well I do hope that it's no longer the case.

I think you should have a read of the Coronavirus Act.

Sorry, but you need to it not only allows for Drs to decide who lives but they are also protected via a change to their insurance.

Boris has spoken one truth- keep your loved ones at home.

@adiposegirl2 what do you mean?