Facing a crush of Covid-19 patients and desperate requests to take transfers from the state’s remote communities, medical staff at Alaska’s largest hospital are for the first time being forced to decide who should get treatment and who must wait, even if they might not survive.
In recent weeks, a triage team of doctors at Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage have been using a formula to score patients on their potential for dying and consulting with an ethicist on the decisions they make. The patients include those sick with Covid-19 and with other ailments.