The Hypocratic oath states that doctors should treat everyone, regardless of race, religion, sexuality, financial status, personal history, etc.
First of all, Western countries already don’t do that. They discriminate by race, religion and sexuality (Catholic hospitals), and especially financial status. So not doing this is already standard practice.
But I personally think a case can be made the communist doctors shouldn’t treat everyone either. If a Nazi comes in, no, he can go fuck himself and no doctor should be treating him. Or in a triage situation, the proletariat should absolutely get priority over the bourgeoisie.
That’s just my hot take and admittedly I do not really know the theory behind this stuff, and I definitely want to learn, hence this post. What do you think? Please correct me if I’m wrong on this.
Careful. That line of though tend to bring healthcare workers toward path that should not be taken.
Sure, I share the sentiment that some people deserve to die. However, that’s not the decision or line of though that a doctor should be making. Sure, the person getting treated may get a wall later, but that’s for the legal systems to determine. The job of every doctors still remain the same : to treat people at best of their abilities without discrimination.
To compromise on the medical ethics merely because “this is already standard practice” can lead to undesirable outcome, as happened so many times in history.
I agree. It is not the job of doctors to make those kinds of decisions. If someone has committed crimes against the revolution so grave that they merit the death penalty that is up to the respective authorities to decide, be they military tribunals, civil courts or some form of governing committee. It’s not so much about medical ethics for me as it is about it being dangerous to place the power to unilaterally make such fundamentally political decisions in the hands of doctors. It undermines the authority of the actual leadership chosen by the people and delegitimizes the system.