Ethical conflicts in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Background: Healthcare setups in India are encountering a lot of medical, ethical, legal, and social challenges endorsed by the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, modifying the healthcare protocols, which are considered a standard of care. The ethical conflicts are pressurizing the decision-makers of society, to revamp the basic principles and traditional assumptions of our present healthcare modalities. Objectives: This report addresses the common but crucial ethical issues, encountered by healthcare workers e.g., doctors and paramedics in day-to-day healthcare practice during the COVID-19 pandemic. Materials and methods: This report tries to cover several ethical aspects of COVID-19 such as: setting priority of screening; professional responsibility of healthcare workers; dilemma encountered by a doctor; compromise of patient confidentiality; allocation of scanty resources; end-of-life situation, and certain critical clinical scenarios. Results and conclusion: COVID warriors from the health sector possess dual responsibilities of taking utmost care of COVID patients ethically, along with self-protection from this havoc. COVID-19 has taught us the lesson that, extra-ordinary time calls for extra-ordinary measures. Also, intervention performed upon the patient affects not only the patient, but also the whole of society.