There is a shortage of protective and treatment equipment for COVID-19 in the UK. NHS staff have been driven to make life or death decisions based on the avilability of equipment used for treatment: "Remove this ventilator from this 80 year old and give to this 30 year old (because we don't have any to spare)..." The same applies to NHS staff who are dying because of a lack of PPE.

Who is responsible (obviously not the NHS staff) and how should they be made to pay? A charge of 'attempted murder', perhaps, or even 'murder' if the patient dies where the treatment would have saved them. That may be a bit extreme but if the shortage can be shown to be due to ineptitude, failure to act on advice or some financial fiddling by those responsible, well, then...

These types of decisions are made every day even outside of this crisis. It’s a practice called triage and it’s a central concern in bioethics. No one is going to “pay” because its SOP in almost everywhere.

Alan B wrote:There is a shortage of protective and treatment equipment for COVID-19 in the UK. NHS staff have been driven to make life or death decisions based on the avilability of equipment used for treatment: "Remove this ventilator from this 80 year old and give to this 30 year old (because we don't have any to spare)..."

Is that true?

Thommo wrote:

Alan B wrote:There is a shortage of protective and treatment equipment for COVID-19 in the UK. NHS staff have been driven to make life or death decisions based on the avilability of equipment used for treatment: "Remove this ventilator from this 80 year old and give to this 30 year old (because we don't have any to spare)..."

Is that true?

It's true in some countries ahead of us on the curve, I don't believe it's the case in UK yet. It probably will be, hopefully for a very short period of time if at all.

felltoearth wrote:These types of decisions are made every day even outside of this crisis. It’s a practice called triage and it’s a central concern in bioethics. No one is going to “pay” because its SOP in almost everywhere.

Triage is a necessary action taken after the event. I'm talking about those responsible that caused the event resulting in triage.

not a valid query. Elect better leaders
....

Certainly true in NYC just now.
Always true in battlefield triage decisions.
What's really tragic is the front line workers who have to make a decision about their own lives by working without adequate protection for themselves.

Canada is just on the cusp of overload ...we might yet dodge it and sneak by with "just adequate" beds and supplies. Will likely know next week.

ronmcd wrote:

Thommo wrote:

Alan B wrote:There is a shortage of protective and treatment equipment for COVID-19 in the UK. NHS staff have been driven to make life or death decisions based on the avilability of equipment used for treatment: "Remove this ventilator from this 80 year old and give to this 30 year old (because we don't have any to spare)..."

Is that true?

It's true in some countries ahead of us on the curve, I don't believe it's the case in UK yet. It probably will be, hopefully for a very short period of time if at all.

Sure, that was my belief as well. I was curious because the post specified the NHS and I had not read that that had happened in the NHS so far, although it may well just be a matter of time.

In answer to the question in the OP, we charge people with murder when they commit murder, not to make political points. We make political points by campaigning for and voting for different people, causes or parties. The mere prospect of prosecution on such a basis is a chilling authoritarianism that I strongly oppose.

In cases of legal neglect, malpractice or fraud that leads to death we have laws that cover those, and those certainly apply (in the hypothetical) to NHS staff as well as politicians. We cannot buy into the hypothetical that NHS staff are never the ones to commit such crimes.

Alan B wrote:

felltoearth wrote:These types of decisions are made every day even outside of this crisis. It’s a practice called triage and it’s a central concern in bioethics. No one is going to “pay” because its SOP in almost everywhere.

Triage is a necessary action taken after the event. I'm talking about those responsible that caused the event resulting in triage.

They never pay. Direct culpability found and Harris still went free to sit as director on numerous corporate boards.

Best of luck with “making them pay.”

Ipperwash Inquiry - Wikipedia

The inquiry "found that the OPP, the provincial government led by Premier Mike Harris, and the federal government all bore responsibility for the events that led to George’s death. Linden also called on the federal government to issue a public apology and return Camp Ipperwash – along with compensation – to the Kettle and Stoney Point First Nation."[1]:425 In Volume 1 of the report it was noted that, Premier Harris's "comments" and "generally the speed at which he wished to end the occupation of Ipperwash Park, created an atmosphere that unduly narrowed the scope of the government's response to the Aboriginal occupation."[22]:392

inews

Coronavirus: NHS whistleblower says nurses advised to 'walk away' from Covid-19 heart attack victims over 'inadequate' PPE

Staff caring for Covid-19 victims at a major hospital in Wales have been advised to “walk away” from patients in the event of a major emergency such as a cardiac arrest because of inadequate protective equipment, a whistleblower claimed.

A senior nurse at Glangwili Hospital in Carmarthen told i she believed that clinicians and patients were being put at risk because she and her colleagues had been provided with only standard surgical masks and plastic aprons as personal protective equipment (PPE) to care for coronavirus victims.

This link, Daily Mirror, gives an indication of what the lack of proper equipment is doing for staff and patients in the UK.

Well, all I can say is it’s a good job I’m not a nurse, because I’m not sure I’d be as selfless as to put myself in harm’s way repeatedly like many nurses do. For all I know, I would walk away.

Engels proposed a crime of social murder. In, The condition of the working class in England (1845), he wrote;

When one individual inflicts bodily injury upon another such that death results, we call the deed manslaughter; when the assailant knew in advance that the injury would be fatal, we call his deed murder. But when society places hundreds of proletarians in such a position that they inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death, one which is quite as much a death by violence as that by the sword or bullet; when it deprives thousands of the necessaries of life, places them under conditions in which they cannot live — forces them, through the strong arm of the law, to remain in such conditions until that death ensues which is the inevitable consequence — knows that these thousands of victims must perish, and yet permits these conditions to remain, its deed is murder just as surely as the deed of the single individual; disguised, malicious murder, murder against which none can defend himself, which does not seem what it is, because no man sees the murderer, because the death of the victim seems a natural one, since the offence is more one of omission than of commission. But murder it remains.

I think it could rightly be said to apply to current circumstances, not least because the government ignored requests for stockpiling of PPE in case of a pandemic, way back in 2016. In addition, the policy of developing 'herd immunity', which seems to be continuing, was in itself a policy that was predicated on the deaths of citizens. I'd also apply it to the wholesale slaughter that has resulted from the whole austerity policy bollocks.

Thank-you, Bill. Engels says it so much better. That is exactly what I meant in my OP.

Various Australian jurisdictions are implementing or debating Industrial Manslaughter laws along these lines for workplace deaths that are a direct result of known-unsafe workplace processes, although there are concerns about their operation in practice (eg will middle management be held responsible for failings of upper management).

However, no Australian jurisdiction has considered equivalent laws to hold government ministers responsible for decisions that lead to preventable deaths in the same way. [/cynicism]

OlivierK wrote:However, no Australian jurisdiction has considered equivalent laws to hold government ministers responsible for decisions that lead to preventable deaths in the same way. [/cynicism]

That can't happen until after Joe Biden is found guilty of committing war crimes by not prosecuting war criminals that have yet to be charged.

This virus is an 'authoritarian' virus - it infects all it contacts and will cause death in some cases. It does not 'pick 'n choose'.

It can only be dealt with in an authoritarian manner - one does not 'pat it on the head and invite it in for a cuppa' - (figuratively speaking of course).

The authorities that ignore professional advice and delay the implementation of treatment and PPE (for any reason other than medical, genuine production problems, etc.) must be brought to account. These will, of course, include the financial manipulators and those that delay or stockpile essential items to sell at an inflated price.

Yeah, well, as said above, easier said than done...

Yeah, good luck with that.

Fallible wrote:Well, all I can say is it’s a good job I’m not a nurse, because I’m not sure I’d be as selfless as to put myself in harm’s way repeatedly like many nurses do. For all I know, I would walk away.

I don't think you would. You would do what you said.

Eh?

Fallible wrote:Eh?

I don't think you'd walk away.

chairman bill wrote:Engels proposed a crime of social murder. In, The condition of the working class in England (1845), he wrote;

When one individual inflicts bodily injury upon another such that death results, we call the deed manslaughter; when the assailant knew in advance that the injury would be fatal, we call his deed murder. But when society places hundreds of proletarians in such a position that they inevitably meet a too early and an unnatural death, one which is quite as much a death by violence as that by the sword or bullet; when it deprives thousands of the necessaries of life, places them under conditions in which they cannot live — forces them, through the strong arm of the law, to remain in such conditions until that death ensues which is the inevitable consequence — knows that these thousands of victims must perish, and yet permits these conditions to remain, its deed is murder just as surely as the deed of the single individual; disguised, malicious murder, murder against which none can defend himself, which does not seem what it is, because no man sees the murderer, because the death of the victim seems a natural one, since the offence is more one of omission than of commission. But murder it remains.

I think it could rightly be said to apply to current circumstances, not least because the government ignored requests for stockpiling of PPE in case of a pandemic, way back in 2016. In addition, the policy of developing 'herd immunity', which seems to be continuing, was in itself a policy that was predicated on the deaths of citizens. I'd also apply it to the wholesale slaughter that has resulted from the whole austerity policy bollocks.

Well of course, the rich have always adopted the attitude that the rest of us are nothing more than serfs and plebs, fit only to be exploited to keep the rich in positions of power and privilege, and to be snuffed out when no longer exploitable. Those that made their money through ruthless exploitation or robber barony, have had to adopt this attitude in order to preserve their hold on that which they stole for themselves.

Furthermore, in the past, as part of that attitude of treating their fellow human beings as explotiable commodities and nothing else, the rich pursued policy decisions aimed at controlling both the numbers and the behaviour of the "serfs and plebs" that they despised - whom, of course, they despised at bottom because they needed those self same "serfs and plebs" to keep them in their castles and palaces. There is a prima facie case for regarding the whole business of warfare as merely one of those tools of control, brought out at intervals to ensure that the "plebs and serfs" were never sufficiently numerous to pose a serious threat. and, for that matter, for regarding the entire concept of the Westphalian State as having been formulated as a means of integrating the tools of control into a monolithic whole.

The one development that sent a serious chill down the spine of the rich, of course, was the French Revolution, which taught the rich am important lesson, but not the lesson that the ordinary people thought it taught them. Ordinary people thought that the French Revolution taught the rich that there was only so far you could push the poor, before inviting unpleasant consequences. What the French Revolution actually taught the rich, was to cultivate whatever ruthlessness was necessary, to ensure that they could continue pushing the poor as far as they wanted, without inviting those consequences.

Unfortunately for the rich, that task became harder for two reasons. One, advances in science and technology required the workforce to be better educated, in order to deliver those advances in a reliable manner on a large scale, but that same education makes the workforce more dangerous. Two, the tool of war as a means of "culling the surplus plebs", has become too dangerous to deploy among the developed nations in the age of nuclear weapons.

So, the rich have turned, with the ruthlessness they learned post-1789, to alternative methods. The hijacking of the infrastructure of civil society, and weaponising it as tool of sometimes lethal oppression, has been one of the outcomes of this policy shift. The whole "Aktion T4 via spreadsheet" that "austerity" became under the Tories, being simply the most visible example of the evil genius at work among the post-1789 rich. Not for nothing did one of the authors of the paper submitted to the British Medical Journal, describe Tory policy as "economic murder".

Very simply, we will not lose our chains until the practices of the rich are visibly recognised as crimes against humanity, and dealt with accordingly.