With the respiratory illness caused by the rapidly spreading COVID-19, many healthcare leaders may want to gaze thoughtfully on a much less discussed topic- What if the ranks of desperately ill patients overwhelm the nation’s ability to care for them? Patients showing the worst symptoms of COVID-19 are unable to breathe, and may succumb to the illness unless life-sustaining oxygen is provided from machines. But many countries are not equipped with enough ventilators to handle the insidious threat posed by the outbreak.
Apart from ventilators, other machines can also deliver oxygen to help patients having low to moderate symptoms, but the most critically ill patients need powerful airway pressure that only ventilators can deliver. Heartbreaking scenes are playing out in Italy, where a spike in COVID-19 cases has overwhelmed the medical system, and doctors have reported a shortage of…
