Ethical decision making in severe paediatric burn victims

Abstract

'The life of a patient is the only life the patient has - can we really make a judgment call on who to treat or not?' J Puchula (from his address at the 2008 congress of the European Club for Paediatric Burns, Gdansk). The matter of triaging severe burns so that expensive and potentially futile treatment should not be initiated was discussed in a priority setting process by the Western Cape Health Department, and led us to question the validity of such an approach.