When offering a patient beneficial treatment undermines public health

• Published in: Bioethics Vol. 37; no. 9; pp. 846 - 853
• Main Authors: Eyal, Nir, Williams, Bridget
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.11.2023
• Subjects: Bioethics; Conscientious objectors; COVID-19; Expected utility; Health needs; Intensive care; Patient communication; Patients; Public health
• ISSN: 0269-9702; 1467-8519
• DOI: 10.1111/bioe.13216

Abstract Sometimes, offering someone beneficial care is likely to thwart the similar or more serious medical needs of more people. For example, when acute shortage is strongly predicted to persist, providing the long period on scarce intensive care that a certain COVID‐19 patient needs is sometimes projected to block several future COVID‐19 patients from receiving the shorter periods on intensive care that they will need. Expected utility is typically higher if the former is denied intensive care. A tempting initial account of such cases is that consequentialism supports denying care to that patient and nonconsequentialism supports providing that care. This paper argues that the consequentialist case is more complicated than it may initially seem and that nonconsequentialism sides more readily with denial of the beneficial treatment. It also shows that when denying it would directly enhance public health by a lot, either ethical approach would normally recommend denying it. Practical implications are discussed, including how to address conscientious objection to this shared recommendation.