VEZINA: Denying medical care to the unvaccinated? Part 2

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I got a lot of comments from my column last month “Denying health care to the unvaccinated? Don’t go there, ”which argued that denying health care to the unvaccinated would be inconsistent with Canadian Medicare principles.

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Most of the responses were positive.

Those who disagreed were generally polite and thoughtful.

Here are some answers to the questions they asked me:

Question: Aren’t people being denied medical care by the anti-vaccines that are flooding the system for the treatment of COVID-19?

Answer: Medical care for people displaced by unvaccinated COVID-19 patients is not denied.

You are falling behind because the system is overloaded and you have to prioritize who will receive treatment and when.

This has been a problem in Medicare for decades, long before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The difference between being denied medical care and waiting for it is subtle but significant.

This is how the system is designed to cope with the need for medical care when it exceeds the capacity of the system to provide it.

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Arguing that someone who refuses to be vaccinated should be de-prioritized in the medical system requires justifying why they are a “less than.”

It also requires defining how much of a “less than” they must be to override the current triage processes.

It is, in effect, a matter of prioritizing personal belief over prognosis, a position that does not have ethical support.

Question: The unvaccinated are choosing to deny medical care, aren’t we just giving them what they want? Why not have them sign a waiver?

Answer: The unvaccinated do not choose to be denied medical care. They choose not to get vaccinated, which is a preventive measure to protect people against COVID-19 and to keep them out of the hospital if they do contract it.

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Whether it is a public safety issue or not is irrelevant, as current government policies do not put vaccines in the public safety toolbox.

If it did, vaccination would be mandatory and not taking it would be illegal, potentially criminal.

To sanction a citizen with the suppression of a right due to an action that is not illegal is foolish.

Even if vaccination were considered a public safety issue, removing a right would still be difficult to justify.

Emergency medical care is provided to convicted serial killers. Is someone who is hesitant to vaccinate, or just refuses to be vaccinated, worse than a serial killer?

The privileges are different. It can be argued, and is being implemented, in favor of job loss and restricting access to non-essential services for those who refuse to be vaccinated. But those are not rights.

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Canada’s universal health insurance system (we don’t have universal health care) could be redesigned so that people pay different amounts based on individual risks caused by their behavior, rather than spreading risk regardless of pre-existing behavior or conditions .

That would result in many people below a certain income threshold and people who smoke, eat unhealthily, play aggressive sports, or engage in risky personal behaviors, being denied health insurance and ending up in a trap. of poverty, or die.

Medical autonomy cannot be overridden on this scale by a personal and legal health decision not to be vaccinated.

It can only be overridden for the sake of public safety.

But public safety is often inversely proportional to personal freedom: the safer the society, the less free it is due to the controls on personal behavior necessary to ensure public safety.

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The amount of freedom that would have to be sacrificed for this level of security in a pandemic is likely intolerable for most Canadians.

There is also the question of practicality.

Denying people medical care to force them to get vaccinated would do more harm than good.

Finally, since our hospitals were already overloaded even before the pandemic, why not consider spending fewer resources on hospitals and more on public health education and emergency preparedness?

After all, if an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, shouldn’t we be focusing on prevention?

– Alex Vezina is the CEO of Prepared Canada Corp. and has a graduate degree in Emergency and Disaster Management. He can be contacted at [email protected]