The Grandview Medical Center Bioethics Consultation Service Perspective on the Peril of Isolated and Vulnerable Individuals due to COVID-19

We present the perspective of a Bioethics Consultation Service operating in an urban hospital in Dayton, Ohio, USA, as it adapted to treating Sars-CoV-2 patients throughout 2020. Since the first case of COVID-19 was reported in Ohio on 9 March 2020, until 1 January 2021, the Bioethics Consultation Service was consulted 60 times, a 22.5% increase from the same period of 2019. The most common diagnoses requiring consultation included end-stage renal disease requiring dialysis, out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, and sepsis. Only 10% of consultations were for patients hospitalized with COVID-19. This is a qualitative analysis of the cases we saw and a discussion of factors that affected our service while adapting to COVID-19 standards of care.