(NaturalNews) Hospitals all across the country are scrambling to equip themselves for a potential Ebola outbreak after major protocol failures at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas left at least two health workers infected with the illness and one patient dead.

The goal is to get at least 20 hospitals fully prepared to handle Ebola patients, according to Reuters, as well as figure out how to best treat patients without jeopardizing the safety of medical workers. This may require that certain patients not receive medical care under the new paradigm, as treating them could put some doctors and nurses at risk.

The current standard for medical care in the U.S. has long been to do everything possible to keep a patient alive, even if means putting quality of life on the back burner. But because of the escalating risks involved, medical personnel could have to forego treating a patient if it is perceived that doing so could put their own lives at risk.

At least three different hospitals told Reuters that they are currently reevaluating their treatment procedures to determine when it is appropriate to withhold care. Should doctors be allowed to subjectively decide when a medical procedure is unsafe, or should there be an official standard? These are among the questions being asked.

"This is another example of how this 21st century viral threat has pulled us back into the 19th century," medical historian Dr. Howard Markel from the University of Michigan stated to Reuters about the way Ebola is changing the healthcare system.

Ebola: the game-changer to usher in the death panels

Prior to Ebola, it would have been nearly unheard of in mainstream medicine for doctors to withhold care under any circumstances, apart from something like voluntary euthanasia. But now that this game-changing disease is on everybody's minds, what was once considered inhumane is quickly being redefined as something necessary for survival.

Remember when the nation was in an outrage over the supposed "death panels" inherent to Obamacare? Notice how the current reevaluation of medical treatment due to Ebola seems to be fulfilling this agenda, though quite differently from what most of us imagined it would?

Soon, it will be considered normal for a doctor or nurse to refuse providing treatment on the mere suspicion that a deadly disease could be spread as a result. In light of the death panels, you will quickly see how this type of policy could lead to widespread abuse and neglect of patients, including elderly patients whose lives might be seen by some as less valuable.

"The possibility of withholding care represents a departure from the 'do everything' philosophy in most American hospitals," wrote Julie Steenhuysen and Sharon Begley for Reuters, adding that the changes represent a "return to a view that held sway a century ago, when doctors were at greater risk of becoming infected by treating dying patients."

Ethics director warns against doctors refusing to care for patients

Recognizing the dangers inherent to this philosophy, Dr. G. Kevin Donovan, director of the bioethics center at Georgetown University, warned that doctors should avoid creating lists of procedures that they will patently refuse to administer to Ebola patients. Ethically speaking, patients must be treated as unique individuals worthy of care.

Administering certain procedures to Ebola patients, he said, "may have diminishing effectiveness as the severity of the disease increases, but we simply have no data on that."

"To have a blanket refusal to offer these procedures is not ethically acceptable."

Learn all these details and more at the FREE online Pandemic Preparedness course at www.BioDefense.com

Sources:

http://www.reuters.com

http://www.theguardian.com

http://www.cnn.com

http://www.dailymail.co.uk

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