Corbella: Unvaccinated are being given better care than the vaccinated needing medical care
'Our health-care pie is not unlimited in size and so we are being forced into the awful position of deciding who gets care and who does not'
Author of the article: Licia Corbella
Publishing date: Sep 29, 2021
Publishing date: Sep 29, 2021
A steady wave of ambulances enter the Foothills hospital in Calgary on Monday, September 27, 2021.
PHOTO BY DARREN MAKOWICHUK/POSTMEDIA
First the numbers, then the stories. Here’s hoping one, or the other, or both, will encourage the unvaccinated to get their shots.
During Tuesday’s lengthy COVID-19 update, Premier Jason Kenney pointed out that while only 17 per cent of eligible Albertans are unvaccinated, they make up 92 per cent of all intensive-care patients clogging our hospitals, proving that this devastating fourth COVID-19 wave really is a pandemic of the unvaccinated.
These would be devastating numbers under normal circumstances, but because of this official public health emergency, Alberta has had to add 197 ICU surge spaces. Without these additional spaces, our ICUs would be at 184 per cent of capacity.
Alberta’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw had many other numbers in her update Tuesday, saying there are currently 1,100 people in hospital, including 263 in the ICU, and 18 more deaths were reported over the previous 24 hours.
But in case numbers don’t paint a compelling enough picture for those who are hesitant to get a vaccine, it’s time to hear about the cost their choice is having on other Albertans who need vital health care and can’t get it because the unvaccinated have overwhelmed our health-care system.
Dr. Edward Les, a pediatric emergency room physician in Calgary and a clinical assistant professor at the University of Calgary, says while all people should be treated with love and compassion — including those who refuse to get vaccinated — “there’s a component to this discussion that receives short shrift, time and time again — and that is that the necessary medical and surgical care of those who are responsibly immunized is being severely curtailed by the pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
About 75 per cent of all surgeries for Alberta children have been postponed to ensure all skilled hands can be on deck for people who wouldn’t need to be in the medical system if only they had been vaccinated.
Ward 6 Coun. Jeff Davison, who is running to be mayor in the Oct. 18 municipal election, recently revealed that his six-year-old daughter’s much-needed kidney surgery was delayed.
Davison confirmed to Postmedia reporter Meghan Potkins that his little girl suffers from a rare condition known by the medical acronym VACTERL association.
“Before we get to the surgery, there has to be an evaluation,” Davison said. “But the letter AHS sent us said that she will not even be seen for evaluation until February. Our system is now being overrun by people who refuse to believe that COVID is real. What happens if she does get into an emert
First the numbers, then the stories. Here’s hoping one, or the other, or both, will encourage the unvaccinated to get their shots.
During Tuesday’s lengthy COVID-19 update, Premier Jason Kenney pointed out that while only 17 per cent of eligible Albertans are unvaccinated, they make up 92 per cent of all intensive-care patients clogging our hospitals, proving that this devastating fourth COVID-19 wave really is a pandemic of the unvaccinated.
These would be devastating numbers under normal circumstances, but because of this official public health emergency, Alberta has had to add 197 ICU surge spaces. Without these additional spaces, our ICUs would be at 184 per cent of capacity.
Alberta’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw had many other numbers in her update Tuesday, saying there are currently 1,100 people in hospital, including 263 in the ICU, and 18 more deaths were reported over the previous 24 hours.
But in case numbers don’t paint a compelling enough picture for those who are hesitant to get a vaccine, it’s time to hear about the cost their choice is having on other Albertans who need vital health care and can’t get it because the unvaccinated have overwhelmed our health-care system.
Dr. Edward Les, a pediatric emergency room physician in Calgary and a clinical assistant professor at the University of Calgary, says while all people should be treated with love and compassion — including those who refuse to get vaccinated — “there’s a component to this discussion that receives short shrift, time and time again — and that is that the necessary medical and surgical care of those who are responsibly immunized is being severely curtailed by the pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
About 75 per cent of all surgeries for Alberta children have been postponed to ensure all skilled hands can be on deck for people who wouldn’t need to be in the medical system if only they had been vaccinated.
Ward 6 Coun. Jeff Davison, who is running to be mayor in the Oct. 18 municipal election, recently revealed that his six-year-old daughter’s much-needed kidney surgery was delayed.
Davison confirmed to Postmedia reporter Meghan Potkins that his little girl suffers from a rare condition known by the medical acronym VACTERL association.
“Before we get to the surgery, there has to be an evaluation,” Davison said. “But the letter AHS sent us said that she will not even be seen for evaluation until February. Our system is now being overrun by people who refuse to believe that COVID is real. What happens if she does get into an emert
Calgary City Coun. Jeff Davison pictured with his six-year-old daughter.
Davison says his daughter’s kidney surgery has been delayed due to COVID-19.
PHOTO BY COURTESY /Jeff Davison
Every parent knows that watching your child suffer is a special kind of hell. Worrying that your child’s health is being forever harmed as you wait is an added layer of agony. So, multiply Davison’s anguish by many hundreds.
Les’s wife is also a physician — with a specialty in obstetrics and gynecology.
“She has had to cancel her so-called elective surgery schedule indefinitely — to be clear, elective does not mean unnecessary,” said Les.
“Consider the women she had scheduled to receive hysteroscopies — a procedure to examine the inside of the uterus to delineate the cause of abnormal uterine bleeding — some of these women will prove to have endometrial cancer, where early diagnosis may very well be critical to long-term survival,” said Les.
He says he has a friend whose bile duct cancer surgery was postponed.
As a survivor of triple-negative breast cancer myself, I fully understand the anxiety that such a diagnosis causes for the patient and their family.
Les understands it all too well, too, as he was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer called Chordoma in 2007.
“I can tell you just as sure as I’m sitting in my car at the moment, that if I had had that really complex diagnosis of a very rare cancer, instead of in January 2007 I had it in January of 2020, I’m not sure the outcome would be the same, given how topsy-turvy the medical-care system has become because of the pandemic and all of the ensuing restrictions.”
What is the cost of the loss of life and potential, and the increase in suffering, anxiety and severity of disease? It’s incalculable.
Les says while he agrees with my Tuesday column calling on us to narrow the divide between those of us who are vaccinated and those who are not, he wants to qualify that support.
“When we have the capacity in our health-care system to care for all, we absolutely should provide care for all — no need to triage who gets life-saving care and who does not.
“But we are in crisis. Our health-care pie is not unlimited in size and so we are being forced into the awful position of deciding who gets care and who does not.”
He says my example of drunk drivers, drug addicts, smokers and alcoholics receiving care without judgment — as they should — “are well conceived, but they miss the mark, in my view. Never has there been a time when a pandemic of smokers with lung cancer or COPD, for example, have all presented at once, overwhelming the capacity of our hospitals and intensive-care units and crowding out the essential care of thousands of other patients.”
He agrees that it is morally and ethically reprehensible to deny care to anyone, since all humans have equal worth.
“Yet,” he argues, “by that same metric, is it not morally and ethically reprehensible to deny much-needed medical and surgical care to COVID-immunized patients in favour of care for those who, whatever their motivation, have refused to pick up a readily available tool to prevent their critical disease?”
Yes it is. This is a heart-wrenching, highly emotional discussion.
Les says “a triage system that doesn’t punish the responsibly vaccinated” should be implemented, and he thinks that instead of a vaccine passport, an immunity passport (based on being doubly-vaccinated or with proof of recent infection, as the Israelis do) could act as “a two-pronged prod to the unvaccinated to step up and receive this safe and highly effective vaccine.”
The triage system we have now is putting the unvaccinated ahead of needy children and others who have done what they can to keep others safe by being vaccinated. We’re likely too under the gun to figure this all out during this wave, but we have to get it right for the future.
Licia Corbella is a Postmedia columnist in Calgary.
Every parent knows that watching your child suffer is a special kind of hell. Worrying that your child’s health is being forever harmed as you wait is an added layer of agony. So, multiply Davison’s anguish by many hundreds.
Les’s wife is also a physician — with a specialty in obstetrics and gynecology.
“She has had to cancel her so-called elective surgery schedule indefinitely — to be clear, elective does not mean unnecessary,” said Les.
“Consider the women she had scheduled to receive hysteroscopies — a procedure to examine the inside of the uterus to delineate the cause of abnormal uterine bleeding — some of these women will prove to have endometrial cancer, where early diagnosis may very well be critical to long-term survival,” said Les.
He says he has a friend whose bile duct cancer surgery was postponed.
As a survivor of triple-negative breast cancer myself, I fully understand the anxiety that such a diagnosis causes for the patient and their family.
Les understands it all too well, too, as he was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer called Chordoma in 2007.
“I can tell you just as sure as I’m sitting in my car at the moment, that if I had had that really complex diagnosis of a very rare cancer, instead of in January 2007 I had it in January of 2020, I’m not sure the outcome would be the same, given how topsy-turvy the medical-care system has become because of the pandemic and all of the ensuing restrictions.”
What is the cost of the loss of life and potential, and the increase in suffering, anxiety and severity of disease? It’s incalculable.
Les says while he agrees with my Tuesday column calling on us to narrow the divide between those of us who are vaccinated and those who are not, he wants to qualify that support.
“When we have the capacity in our health-care system to care for all, we absolutely should provide care for all — no need to triage who gets life-saving care and who does not.
“But we are in crisis. Our health-care pie is not unlimited in size and so we are being forced into the awful position of deciding who gets care and who does not.”
He says my example of drunk drivers, drug addicts, smokers and alcoholics receiving care without judgment — as they should — “are well conceived, but they miss the mark, in my view. Never has there been a time when a pandemic of smokers with lung cancer or COPD, for example, have all presented at once, overwhelming the capacity of our hospitals and intensive-care units and crowding out the essential care of thousands of other patients.”
He agrees that it is morally and ethically reprehensible to deny care to anyone, since all humans have equal worth.
“Yet,” he argues, “by that same metric, is it not morally and ethically reprehensible to deny much-needed medical and surgical care to COVID-immunized patients in favour of care for those who, whatever their motivation, have refused to pick up a readily available tool to prevent their critical disease?”
Yes it is. This is a heart-wrenching, highly emotional discussion.
Les says “a triage system that doesn’t punish the responsibly vaccinated” should be implemented, and he thinks that instead of a vaccine passport, an immunity passport (based on being doubly-vaccinated or with proof of recent infection, as the Israelis do) could act as “a two-pronged prod to the unvaccinated to step up and receive this safe and highly effective vaccine.”
The triage system we have now is putting the unvaccinated ahead of needy children and others who have done what they can to keep others safe by being vaccinated. We’re likely too under the gun to figure this all out during this wave, but we have to get it right for the future.
Licia Corbella is a Postmedia columnist in Calgary.
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