I've asked my friends working in medicine the same thing. What if hospitals were to start turning away those who are willingly unvaccinated? I haven't been able to get a clear answer but the basic theme I hear is you can't, state law prohibits that. Of course the law can be changed, but what legislature is going to do that? This is where politics enters the fray. They'd rather kick the can down the road and bring in the National Guard to help run the hospitals than turn away patients and potentially face voter wrath.
For hospitals it's the federal EMTALA law which makes it illegal for hospitals to deny emergency care on the basis of vaccination status. If a patient shows up with unstable vital signs then the hospital is required to at least stabilize them. For COVID-19 patients that's usually based on respiratory distress or low blood oxygen saturation.
So, we essentially have mandates to "treat" with no corresponding agreement on defining any mandates to "prevent". Prevention mandates could be a tapestry of options and defined within specific contextual and cultural boundaries. But having nothing on the "prevent" tilts the scale entirely to obligatory treatment and clearly feels imbalanced.
I'm vaccinated and think everyone capable of receiving the vaccine should get it but turning people away is cruel. That's science-fiction dystopia cruelty in my opinion. Now if a hospital is full and at capacity maybe there are some calculations but just turning people away is wrong.
Note I wasn't suggesting turning people away if they're unvaccinated, I think that would be dehumanizing and would set a horrible precedent. I'm just wondering why pre-programmed surgeries and screenings are being deprogrammed when a Covid hospitalization spike is expected, as opposed to keeping all previously programmed appointments, and turning new Covid patients away when you hit full capacity (regardless of vaccination status, and obviously wouldn't include people who catch Covid at the hospital since they're already there) given the additional burden involved when dealing with Covid patients.
It's a really complicated issue. I've had a doctor friend explain it to me that one way to look at it is ignorance is a disease. The unvaccinated who have Covid now have two diseases they're fighting against. It's an interesting perspective.
Keeping with that perspective, those coming to the hospital with Covid that goes untreated are more likely to die in the next 30 days than those who come in with cancer that goes untreated. That's the calculus being played out. They're hoping to get through these waves and then get back to the patients who weren't facing as immediate a health threat.
What's really bothering my medical friends, and I suspect may be the source of so much burnout, is the prevalence of willful ignorance. They see it as a majority of the unvaccinated are people who should know better - that's what's making this so tough for them. They knew there would be cranks and crackpots who wouldn't get the vaccine because there always are. They weren't expecting it to be this prevalent and they certainly weren't expecting it to be politicized. The whole situation is demoralizing and causing people to reassess their life choices.
