Faith IQ – Is it Permissible to Restrict And Prioritize Life Saving Equipment – Shaykh Abu Eesa

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Is it permissible to restrict access to patients to life saving equipment and even prioritize some over others?

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One of the issues, of course, that the COVID-19 crisis has brought to our attention is the scarcity of resources, life saving equipment, equipment, ventilators and so on. Is it possible therefore, there has to be a prioritization or some kind of order of who actually is more deserving of life saving. And before I speak about that, I want to remind myself and yourself that, according to the vast majority of scholars, medical treatment is something only permissible, it's not something which is obligated unless there is an absolute 100% certainty of saving your life when you are about to die. And, of course, what we've learned about the process is all the treatments that are being

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offered for and it's not even treatments really is trying to keep alive, a COVID-19 suffering patient, that there is no certainty whatsoever. And that is why in this case, even before we get to the division, or the dividing out of resources, it would be right to say that it is something which is permissible for you to refuse to go and be put onto a life saving machine or ventilator, which are very intrusive, invasive procedures. And many people who are already suffering underlying conditions, or are very frail and old, will often not survive that process or being revived afterwards. Anyway. So that's just a slight caveat, which is important, and we discuss in other

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classes and issues. But just to the point, Is this some kind of basis of choosing between people? I think so I think that it is permissible for the public Muslim has been the benefit of this society. So for example, it's clear that in this crisis, the frontline health care workers are essential the doctors, the support staff, the nurses, and if they were, if there was no no one getting to the machines first and there was immediate equal access, but there were limited machines, there will be people that will be given the priority first because of the benefits of mankind. However, if it was a different scenario, where there are already patients on life saving equipment machine or on

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ventilators, then they are definitely more deserving to remain there. It's not permissible for them to be taken off, just because we have an old doctor who's waiting in the wings. And that's because the Prophet sallallahu wasallam has established from the sooner it just in a in a general principle, because the Hadees the majority of the heads that underrated on this are weak. In terms of the first come first serve concept. However, we have embody the prophets lie Selim segment, Amara Audubon, basically I had for her that whoever

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brings the land back to usefulness and you know, builds upon it and cultivated land which is dead, which is out of the way, which is not being used, and doesn't belong to someone so it's not being used, then he is most deserving of that, he will then get the benefit of that the use of that, because he's the one who got to it first, and did all the work first. So we can do an analogy from this and support the concept of first come first served in principle. And that's what we would use.

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As the priority if we were forced to that is a system that we would use another one which is also possible. And I pulled this forward because the healthcare systems that we have in the West, and in fact, in the east, they will use different criteria to make their decision on what should happen in a case of an emergency. And I know that in many countries, we've not actually reached that level, where the ventilators have run out or life saving equipment has run out or the resources to manned them have run out but it could get like that there could be other waves of the condition that would create that. So we do need to be prepared and if necessary, a lottery quote unquote system can be

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put into use for example, something which is

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like the drawing of lots like a short straw for those people who are not used to that kind of archaic stuff, then Eeny meeny miney, moe, almost, in actual fact, unicellular, that was exactly how he ended up in the in the sea, because the ship that they were on as a lactose as an operon was about to sink to heavy overladen. And therefore they drew lots who was the one who is going to lighten the ship, if you like. And Uncle Sam, he kept drawing the short straw. The people on the board kept refusing his result because they knew that he was the best and he was the most pious and they didn't want to get rid of him. But of course, they did it again did it again. And then in the

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end, he just insisted, I mean, his he kept coming out is clearly written for a mental Hamdulillah, that Allah Subhana Allah brought from that experience, despite the end of the trial that unicellular went through, he at least gave us the draw, which is the most greater Allah, Allah, Allah, anthropogenic in the country, not violent mean, which we learned from the experience. So the The point is, is that if it comes to it, then the Islam certainly does have the capacity to be able to deal with this from an ethical point of view. And that's important because ultimately a different a different philosophies will be at play, whether it's a democratic philosophy or My ruling point of

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view or health, economics or health.

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Politics, but I just want you to know that from Islam from an Islamic point of view from a fixed point of view, we also have principles that can come into use. If the situation gets to that one level to Allah, Allah.

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