EDITOR, The Tribune.

Access to medicine and health care should be a basic human right but with our hospitals beyond capacity who will take precedence? Of course, we have been here before and knew this time would return as we watched restrictions ease, masks slip and numbers soar amidst the rampant rise of the delta variant. With daily infections at an all time high and COVID fatigue deep seated in many, it’s perplexing to comprehend as to why emergency power restrictions are as benign and unencumbering as they currently are. But, of course, with an election looming and votes to secure the futile 9pm curfew is drenched in appeal.

Compared to the authoritarian lockdowns of 2020 (which flattened the curve of COVID and sadly that of our GDP) I’d say things are different. And they are different. Now over a year and a half into this pandemic our hospitals are once again overflowing, but unlike early COVID days, this could be avoided. There are now a number of effective vaccines that could eliminate hospitalizations and deaths. but a staggering 86% of Bahamians are simply refusing. When there was no vaccine, triage was troubling but straightforward. But with vaccines readily available, things are different and a system must be established as the hospitals cannot be expected to provide quality healthcare whilst on the verge of continued collapse. Currently, the vast majority of the sick calling on our capital’s hospitals have turned down the vaccine that could have prevented their infection entirely. And so a distressing ethical question looms: should eligible, unvaccinated people be given the same priority as vaccinated patients?

Of course, if hospital capacities weren’t at their max this would be irrelevant but unfortunately this is our reality. It’s an enormously difficult point to navigate but when hospital resources are as scarce as ours are the decision to not vaccinate becomes one of moral responsibility or lack thereof. If you choose not to get vaccinated and that decision results in your hospitalization which then takes a bed away from someone else who is vaccinated but critically injured and without it will die, we must ask if this is ethically fair? It is of course everyone’s choice but choices have consequences. The unvaccinated dismiss the science that they later burden with saving their lives... This hypothetical scenario is happening every day and we need to decide if it is right?

Inevitably, this jarring reality will affect you at one point. You will know someone critically ill who requires immediate care but an unvaccinated COVID patient is given the last available bed and so their condition deteriorates or worse they die. Is it fair that the unvaccinated are crippling healthcare systems worldwide and people are dying of unrelated ailments because they cannot get the care they need? I am sure that the eligible and willingly unvaccinated might think differently if they were deprioritized during these desperate times. We have the tool that we need to progress past this pandemic, but it is impossible without collective action and complete solidarity.

EMMA LIDDEL

Nassau,

August 26, 2021.