Ethical issues in intensive care: a look to the 90s - abstract

ABSTRACT

With the advent of Intensive Care Units has come the ability to offer life support technology to patients with failure of the vital systems, patients who would die without this type of support. Ethical decisions have now to be made as to the selection of patients who would have the optimum response to such technology. Such decisions are not easily made as the factors on which they are sometimes based are neither objective nor well-defined. These factors are not subject to patients pathology only, but als to the availability of the necessary equipment and personnel. Although such decisions have to be made in every country offering intensive care, they become more important in those countries with scarce resources, e.g., the West Indian Islands. In addition to the above issues, newer issues will be discussed, e.g., the impact of the AIDS patient on ICU personnel, "Living Wills", etc (AU)