Hospitals in US drop patient race as criterion for evaluating Covid-19 risks

In a US hospital network, the race of persons has been used as one of the criteria for evaluating, if they are eligible for priority treatment against Covid-19 with monoclonal antibodies, US broadcaster Fox News reports.
American hospital network SSM Health, which operates 23 hospitals in the US states of Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma and Wisconsin announced it has stopped using race as a determining factor for prioritizing Covid-19 treatment following a legal complaint from a non-profit law firm.
Attorneys at the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty send a letter on Friday, January 14, to SSM Health warning that it is illegal to distribute monoclonal antibody products based on race. In the letter the attorneys referred to a December 31 email to physicians by SSM Health that referenced a risk scoring calculator, in which non-white patients received a 7-point head start out of 20 total and were therefore more likely to receive life-saving medical treatment over white patients with medically recognized co-morbidities or symptoms, the attorneys argued.
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«For example, a 50-year-old white female (15 points) suffering from obesity (1 point), asthma (1 point), and hypertension (1 point) would not be eligible for mAbs because she does not receive the 20-point minimum score under the calculator,» the attorneys argued. «On the other hand, an otherwise healthy 50-year-old African-American female (22 points), without any of these health risks, would be eligible.»
The network of hospitals responded, according to Fox News and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, that the calculator referenced in the law firm’s letter was old and no longer being used. «While early versions of risk calculators across the nation appropriately included race and gender criteria based on initial outcomes, SSM Health has continued to evaluate and update our protocols weekly to reflect the most up-to-date clinical evidence available,» the company explained in a statement, the US media reported.