Many see the anti-vaccine stance as hypocrisy. Because these people rely on doctors and medical technology to save themselves from getting sick after refusing preventative medical care.
By contrast, Singapore is now taking a rather harsh approach to anti-vaccination. Those who refuse the COVID-19 vaccine will now be required to pay for the treatment. Singapore hospitals will no longer offer free healthcare to COVID-19 patients who voluntarily refuse the vaccine, according to a statement released on Monday. Predictably, this decision refers to the excessive pressure placed on the healthcare system by unvaccinated patients.
As harsh as it may sound, Singapore has a privatized healthcare system and expenses are then covered by the government to varying degrees depending on the disease. With the COVID-19 pandemic, Singapore authorities made an exception to the rule, allowing free and fully reimbursed treatment. So this decision gets this exception from people who haven’t been vaccinated. In other words, the unvaccinated patient will have to pay the bill himself.
The decision split experts, with some arguing that it was a matter of denying equality to all, while others pointing out that it was simply a reversion to a standardized way of working and referring to the extreme impact of unvaccinated patients on hospital space.
At the press conference held by the Ministry of Health, it was said, “The vast majority of those in need of inpatient intensive care are unvaccinated and contribute disproportionately to the pressure on our health resources.”
It may also be worth noting that this announcement only affects vaccinated eligible people who choose to refuse the vaccine, so children under 12 and medically exempt persons will be covered.
In fact, this is not the first time hospitals and governments have imposed restrictions on anti-vaccine people in recent months. As hospitalizations continue to rise and transplant organs remain understaffed, a Colorado healthcare system has tended to rank those who choose to forgo vaccines lower in organ transplants. The rationale is that the vital organs, which are only one out of every 5 people who need a transplant, should go to those who can best protect them and the care they receive. Some have called to question whether the same can be done for overweight people with heart disease or smokers with lung cancer, but the “right” decision may be one of those difficult choices as doctors have to decide who gets treatment and who doesn’t during the pandemic.
A hospital in Arkansas as well as Colorado has an interesting approach. They believe in the right to renounce not only the vaccine, but all medical science, and so they now have a form stating that if you reject the COVID-19 vaccine for religious reasons, you will also give up all medicines containing fetal cell lines. More commonly used drugs such as Tylenol and Sudafed are also in this group.
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