Doctors facing potentially 鈥渄istressing decisions鈥� around distribution of ventilators to patients will have guidelines and support, says B.C.鈥檚 top doctor.

When asked if there are enough ventilator units in the Island Health area and whether doctors would have to choose who would receive them, Dr. Bonnie Henry, B.C. health officer, said the province has a strategy in place for that.

鈥淣o single physician will have to make those decisions in isolation,鈥� Henry said during media availability Saturday, March 21. 鈥淲e have an ethical framework and we have a provincial framework that supports how those decisions might be made, if and when they were ever necessary. But all of our planning is to support each facility around the province to make sure that we can react to where people are and where people are needing care, so this is not something that an individual physician will have to do on their own.

鈥淭hese are terribly distressing decisions and I think it鈥檚 a reflection of the concern and what we鈥檙e seeing around the world that puts us in moral distress. We talk about it in the ethical world and we have a plan. We鈥檝e been working on our ethical framework for this type of a situation for many years.鈥�

As of Thursday, March 19, Island Health said it has 96 intensive care unit beds available and 140 ventilators, 22 of which are transport ventilators.

According to numbers provided by Henry on Saturday, there 424 cases of COVID-19 across the province, including 37 on Vancouver Island. Of all B.C. residents diagnosed, 27 are in hospital, 12 people are in intensive care and six have fully recovered.

JUST IN: 74 new cases in B.C. = 424 cases now
1 new death linked to Lynn Valley Care Centre.
230 in VCH
126 in FH
37 in VIH
27 in IH
4 in NH
5 new cases in hospital = total 27, 12 in ICU

鈥� Ashley Wadhwani (@ashwadhwani)

B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix said everyone must contribute in order to curb the pandemic.

鈥淭hat is why all of the steps we鈥檙e asking people to take, to stop the spread of COVID-19, require 100 support,鈥� said Dix at the press conference. 鈥淏ecause our ability that we are making significant changes in the health care system, we still have to take care of lots of people who are dealing with lots of other things and continue to make intervention in urgent matters 鈥� and that responsibility is collective and it鈥檚 also individual on everybody out there. On Vancouver Island and everywhere else.鈥�

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-with files from Nina Grossman, Black Press

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