Ontario Patients to Be Ranked for Life Saving Care Should ICUs Become Full

Medical workers treat a patient with COVID-19 in the intensive care unit at the University Hospital during the state of emergency of the COVID-19)outbreak, in Lausanne, Switzerland, on April 3, 2020. Patients in Ontario who need life-saving treatment will only receive care based on an evaluation of their chances to live a year should ICUs become overwhelmed. AP-Pool Photo Via AP/The Canadian Press

Hospitals in Ontario have received a much-anticipated document that lays out the criteria to be used if intensive care units fill up and medical resources are scarce.

According to the document, titled “Adult Critical Care Clinical Emergency Standard of Care for Major Surge” and prepared by the province’s critical care COVID-19 command centre-patients will be scored by doctors on a “short-term mortality risk assessment.”