Triage, From the French term “To Sort” Is Taking On A More Grim Meaning

A Familiar Term With A More Somber Meaning

If you have ever been to an Emergency Room or worked in healthcare, you are more than likely familiar with the term “triage”. In more mundane times, the triage section is where you or a loved one is asked what ailments or symptoms you are suffering from, and then you are prioritized according to the urgency of your condition.

Three Categories of Triage

According to Science Direct, there are three main categories of triage evaluation results:

Immediate Care: Conditions require care right now in order to prevent death.

Urgent Care: Conditions require care as soon as possible to prevent death.

Delayed Care: Conditions require care but it does not have to be right now in order to prevent death ie “it can wait a while”.

Sorting Human Lives

From the French “to sort”, triage and the ideas of selecting who gets care first in order of severity of illness BUT also in adjudicating (making a judgment or determination based upon the perceived value of the life in question as well as the likelihood of survival under care) is believed to have originated during the time of Napoleon.

With constant conquests, wars, and skirmishes, injuries and illness were abundant. Resources to cure and care for these injuries were not. So the medics began “sorting” soldiers according to the severity of the condition, the likelihood of survival with medical intervention, and the value this person would provide in comparison to another injured person to decide who was a better candidate for treatment.

Essentially these medics began playing the part of a judge of who deserves to live and who deserves to die.

From Prioritization of Care to Prioritization of Survival

In modern times, particularly in the United States, we have viewed triage as a prioritization mechanism. Triage has merely determined the order and how quickly you would receive care, but triage at least in recent memory, has never been responsible for who would receive care at all.

The ShutDowns Were To Assist Our Medical Professionals

By assist I mean, making sure that there were enough healthcare resources and staffing so our medical professionals did not have to judge who deserves care and who does not. As barbaric and heartless as this sounds, that is at the root of what triage means during times of war, famine, and plague. (We are currently experiencing the plague section, in case you were wondering).

But All Human Life Is Valuable!

I agree. I agree that everyone deserves to live in health and in comfort. And under more stable conditions, our healthcare professionals do their damndest to ensure that is the case, particularly in lower-income areas.

But now, our resources are exhausted and the infection rates continue to climb.

We Are Now At The Point Of Sorting

Who will survive treatment?

Those with the highest likelihood of positive response with the medical intervention will be treated first. This puts those with a pre-existing and terminal illness in a very precarious situation.

Who has a DNR?

They will not receive treatment. Use that knowledge to your own advantage in decision making.

What about the elderly?

Remember when we were locking down to save everyone’s grandparents? This is why. Once the medical system becomes exhausted (which I would say happened the week before Christmas), medical professionals will have to make the decision to give treatment to those who have the most life left to live. Given the choice of saving the 81-year-old or saving the 22-year-old, triage dictates that the 22-year-old receives care before the 81-year-old does.

That’s kind of what the proponents of the shutdowns were trying to idk AVOID.

What about social class?

We have not yet gotten to that point in triage and sorting. But we may. At that point, your education level, occupation, and other factors will be considered in order to preserve society. The value of your work to the greater good will be weighed to see who gets care.

If we get to this point, we are in a state of such fuckery that even surviving would not necessarily be a great thing.

What lawmakers were trying to avoid is nowhere. Our medical professionals are now in aggressive “sorting” mode of patients, I mean judging who gets treatment, I mean, triage.

You have to know what the Words Mean.

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