Lora Briški

With the emergence of the covid-19 pandemic, the hypothetical scenarios previously discussed (mainly) in academic fora have become part of social reality, at least in some countries. Overburdened healthcare systems have raised severe fears that it would not be possible to provide adequate medical care to all patients needing it due to personnel and medical equipment shortages. Such tragical dilemmas may cause an immense burden to decision-makers, who are put in a position to choose whom to offer a chance of survival. Our research examined the answers of medical ethics and linked them to recommendations published by the Slovenian and foreign ethics councils and professional medical associations. Documents from different countries raise different issues and dilemmas. However, all of them were developed to ensure ethical and fair decisions in times of crisis. The second part of our research examined public attitudes towards tragical triage. We designed an online survey based on a survey originally conceived in 2020 by the Max Planck Institute for Research on Crime, Security and Law and the University of Leipzig. We presented Slovenian respondents with several scenarios, asking them to make difficult decisions regarding treatment prioritisation. Their task was to decide which patient should receive priority in the event of scarce medical resources (ventilators). They could also choose to make a random decision.