Military Medical Ethics – Scenario Collection

Resources for local civilians or reserved for emergency treatment of own?

Page ID: 96
Last updated: 26 Jul, 2019
Page ID: 96
Last updated: 26 Jul, 2019
Revision: 4
Comments: 0

You are a medical officer and among the first group of soldiers on an international crisis management operation.

Some days after you have setup your role-2 facililty (which has an operating theatre and two ICU beds), you receive two local civilian patients who are polytraumatized.

An assessment of the local hospitals in the surrounding area shows that no local institution could adequately take over the care, the patients would very probably die soon after handover.

At the same time, military plans for high-intensity operations against insurgents are well advanced; your commander on the ground demands that all medical capacities be held ready for own casualties (that are highly likely to occur in the planned operation).

A further complication is that the supply and replenishment of your facility with medical material only starts slowly and the two local intensive care patients are increasingly using the available supplies, including e.g. medical oxygen.

Source: Adapted from von Uslar, Rolf. 2018. Wer wird behandelt? Reflexionen zu ,,Medical Rules of Eligibility" in Operationen des lnternationalen Krisenmanagements. Wehrmedizinische Monatsschrift 62 (7):S1-S12.

Questions for the discussion of this scenario

Should you transfer the local patients to local facilities, knowing that they cannot survive there?
What other options do you have?

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Page ID: 96
Last updated: 26 Jul, 2019
Revision: 4
Comments: 0
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