By Michael Dunn, Ann Gallagher and Nipa Chauhan With each day that passes, the COVID-19 pandemic is changing many of the things that we have taken for granted in our daily lives. Nowhere is this more evident than in residential settings – care homes and nursing homes – responsible for supporting, and providing care […]
Latest articles
Better, faster, safer, sounder; blockchain, bioethics and prosent
By Sebastian Porsdam Mann. Nearly 20 systematic or scoping reviews were published on blockchain pilots in medical contexts in 2019 alone. Our paper is the first to call attention to the need for bioethical analysis of potential blockchain implementations in healthcare and health research. These are urgent questions, since different implementation and design choices can […]
COVID-19 and health workers’ rights in Africa: the duty to treat or not to treat?
By Adaeze Aniodoh “The public’s and the health workers’ concerns are not mutually exclusive; the goal is safety and fairness for all. Patients have a right to be protected. Health workers also have rights, and when infected they become patients.” Recently the world has come to shock as the World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 ‘a […]
Report on the Ethical Response to COVID-19 in Malaysia
By Hui-Siu Tan. One of the better things to come from social media during COVID-19 was Malaysia’s Ministry of Health’s (MOH) use of Facebook (and FB Live), Twitter, and Telegram. These kept both the public and the news media updated at 5 pm every day. This good start, however, was subsequently tainted by a controversial […]
Downloading COVID-19 contact tracing apps is a moral obligation
By G. Owen Schaefer and Angela Ballantyne Should you download an app that could notify you if you had been in contact with someone who contracted COVID-19? Such apps are already available in countries such as Israel, Singapore, and Australia, with other countries like the UK and US soon to follow. Here, we explain why […]
Lack of leadership to limit “futile” end-of-life care leaves Canada hamstrung in COVID-19 pandemic
By Lucas Vivas and Travis Carpenter The COVID-19 pandemic has shed a light on many of the strengths and weaknesses of the world’s public health systems. In Canada, where the national health care system was stretched even before the expected COVID-19 surge, a conversation has begun about the need to direct health care resources to […]
Law and ethics in the time of COVID-19
By Neil Pickering In order to support its Alert Level 4 declaration, the New Zealand government has taken up extraordinary legal powers to control people’s lives. As Professor Andrew Geddis of the Otago University Faculty of Law is reported to have said: “These give the state extraordinary reach into our lives, and transfer extraordinary power […]
Should culpability or negligence of the patient affect triage decisions? A question the state needs to answer for healthcare professionals
By Nikunj Agarwal Triage decision and value judgments Value judgments about justice or fairness are neither easy nor conclusive. However, this does not prevent value judgments from being made on a daily basis. When a judge attempts to determine the culpability of an accused, the procedural and evidentiary rules assist her in making those value […]
Supreme Court rules on the first prosecution of a Dutch doctor since the euthanasia act
Eva C.A. Asscher and Suzanne van de Vathorst. On April 21st the Supreme Court passed judgement on the case of the first doctor to be prosecuted since the 2002 Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide (Review Procedures) Act. In September 2019 a Dutch nursing home doctor performing euthanasia on a patient with severe […]
A lesson from COVID-19: Persuasion can be a more powerful tool than mandates in improving vaccine uptake
By Jennifer O’Neill. Only months ago, it would have been hard to believe that the citizens of Western democracies would forsake their basic liberties. Yet, in recent weeks, the public have accepted that life as we know it is on hold for an undefined period of time and that during that time they cannot see […]