Czech expert statements on patient prioritisation in the Covid-19 pandemic in international comparison
Abstract
In November 2020, facing the increasing second wave of the pandemic, several professional societies of the Czech Medical Association of J. E.
Purkyně issued a statement on the allocation of scarce health resources. The Statement has since been criticised at times as too legalistic and vague.
However, the positive Czech law is rather strict in determining what criteria can be used for patient prioritisation and fails to foresee possible nationwide crises when the standard rules might be difficult to comply with. Another expert document on patient prioritisation was issued by a team from the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.
The two documents are very different in their approach: while the former aims at providing legal certainty, the latter predominantly uses ethical arguments. The paper analyses both statements and provides a comparison with selected guidelines from other countries as well as international law requirements.