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Snake bite – do you use antivenom for a local patient?

Page ID: 119

Last updated: 15 Sep, 2022

Page ID: 119

Last updated: 15 Sep, 2022

Revision: 1

Comments: 0

A report comes in announcing there is a patient at the main gate. Military nurse Yvonne goes there, together with a military physician and a number of colleagues.
At the gate is a father holding a small baby. With the aid of an interpreter, he tells Yvonne that the baby has been bitten by a snake. The man says: 'Here is my baby, help me.'
There are a number of vials with antivenom left. She and the military physician call their seniors: 'What should we do?'
The father, with a look of mortal fear in his eyes, comes closer and closer to her. Yvonne takes a step back each time: 'Once you're holding the baby, saying no becomes even more difficult.'
The senior medical authority of the area makes clear that the antivenom kept in store should be saved to treat the contingent's own personnel. But Yvonne knows that if they send the father and the baby to the local hospital the baby will not make it.

Source: Baarle, Eva van. 2022. Chapter 2 Fostering Reflective Practice and Moral Competence: Ethics Education in the Military. In , 15–23. Leiden, Niederlande: Brill | Nijhoff. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004512474_003 (Slightly adapted)