When you push for an ICU bed, are you saving someone or killing?

IMPORTANT POST: COVID advisory. THIS IS ACTUALLY A CIVIC SOCIETY ADVISORY, than COVID.

In the last 24 hours I have had requests for 5 beds, 3 units of blood and 2 ventilators support from friends and family. I was particularly deep into finding a ventilator-ICU for my cousin. And the situation across is bad – very few ICU beds and fewer ventilators.But this is not about the government’s fallacies. It’s about us. I had 3 different people suggest names to me, who could help ‘force’ the hospitals to break the queue and send my cousin up the list. Technically, it meant someone of greater influence being able to push his way to survival, with scant regard for who was losing.

For all that I know, I could be pushing the case for my 70-year old cousin, while denying a 40-year-old breadwinner a chance to live and care for his or her family! Age notwithstanding, I was still playing god by deciding the pecking order for speciality care for one and denying the same for another.I refused. I insisted only on getting a bed that was vacant and did not have someone waiting. Only by fair turn, not by covert force.

And the purpose of this note? To use power, influence or money to get your way, is corruption of a high order. It’s a privilege, a form of oppression, unethical and obscene. If you must, dog forbid, encounter such a situation – PLAY FAIR. It may seem ok to be selfish, its not. These are the same principles that apply to denying any life its right to live.