Principles of Pandemic Preparedness

Rosemary Flanigan
December 22, 2009

Even with Christmas approaching, I’m thinking of the January 2010 ethics committee meeting and its self-education segment. It’s going to be Pandemic Preparedness, and George Flanagan is helping me lead the discussion.

But to what end??? What expectations do I have for a committee of busy people to mull over pandemic preparedness?

First, knowledge about what is going on Missouri-wide (and nationally) knowing full well that there are inadequate facilities, staffing and funding.

Second, knowledge that the preparedness effort is grounded in ethical principles of fairness, respect, solidarity and limiting harm.

And third, getting the group to discuss the framework, talk over its problem areas, and to choose methods of carrying the discussion to their own groups.

Just in case swine flu is the next pandemic, now that we oldsters are no longer banned from receiving H1N1 shots, I received mine last Friday. I’ll be around to see how the preparedness works!

Any thoughts? Have any of you had these discussions with your committees?

Me-Me and Pandemic Ethics

Rosemary Flanigan
December 10, 2009

The growing "me-me-me attitude" of Americans rolls on unabated.

I have been planning our January ethics committee self-education on the ethical guidelines for pandemic preparedness and saw immediately that here, too, we are building a levee against me-me-me.

And it will be hard to sell it.

But thinking about and talking about these matters is a MUST. E.g., Is stockpiling some essentials unrealistic, pandering to our “self-sufficiency” ideal, or undervaluing the notion of mutual aid?

The same question could be asked of every hospital resource.

Whether people agree or disagree on the details, a forum or even lunch talk with colleagues can launch us into articulating how our actions reveal who we really are—and whether or not we want to be that person.

Link: "Listen to the People": Public Deliberation about Social Distancing Measures in a Pandemic, American Journal of Bioethics, November 2009