Warou in the summer sunshine

The unit was at 100% occupancy, and patients are having to wait for someone to be discharged before they can be admitted. Which can create serious difficulties.

I recall discussion when I was studying medical ethics at Auckland University. Even then (more than 25 years ago) we were often faced with inadequate resources to provide optimum care for everyone in need. In such a setting one cannot ignore the needs of unseen patients and only attend to the needs of the one patient in front of one at any one time. Yet we are expected to provide the best care possible to each patient. For each of us that balance reflects what we can personally tolerate.