Hospital Resources

[SaintNobody]

I’m looking for Catholic information on end-of-life issues.

Specifically, I’m trying to find some principles guide health care rationing.

For instance, suppose you are a hospital and you have limited resources. How do you decide who gets a hospital bed? Is it morally permissible to kick out, say a terminally ill person from the hospital to provide care for someone who may have a shot at recovery?

And what about the severely disabled? Is it legitimate to refuse to keep a patient alive on the grounds that limited hospital resources could be devoted to someone else?

I’d just like some insight into these issues.

 

[Holly3278]

Here’s some links that might be helpful:

catholic.com/library/Anointing_of_the_Sick.asp

lifeissues.net/writers/mis/mis_11endlifedecisions.html

macathconf.org/6Teachings.htm

usccb.org/prolife/issues/euthanas/index.shtml

ewtn.com/expert/answers/end_of_life_decisions.htm

 

[Newbie2]

I’m looking for Catholic information on end-of-life issues.

Specifically, I’m trying to find some principles guide health care rationing.

For instance, suppose you are a hospital and you have limited resources. How do you decide who gets a hospital bed? Is it morally permissible to kick out, say a terminally ill person from the hospital to provide care for someone who may have a shot at recovery?

And what about the severely disabled? Is it legitimate to refuse to keep a patient alive on the grounds that limited hospital resources could be devoted to someone else?

I’d just like some insight into these issues.

This is the essense of Moral Theology in its application to biomedical sciences. My suggestion is to first look over basic principles of Moral Theology, then get into specific references to biomedicine. Pretty much you can start from “Do good, do no evil” and go from there.

I would recommend “Fulfillment in Christ: A Summary of Christian Moral Principles” as a starting text for basic moral principles.

amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Germain%20Grisez&page=1