Remember when hospitals were places of healing? During the COVID-19 pandemic, that notion was turned on its head. TrialSite News recently published an article titled “How Hospitals Became Killing Centres—Misdiagnosis, Censorship, and the Suppression of Reason”, and it's a sobering read.
In the early days of the pandemic, hospitals adopted protocols that, in hindsight, did more harm than good. Ventilators were used aggressively, following guidance that mirrored early Chinese protocols. In New York's spring 2020 surge, nearly 9 out of 10 intubated patients died.
Why such a high mortality rate? Because COVID-19 pneumonia was misdiagnosed as typical Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), leading to invasive mechanical ventilation when less aggressive treatments might have sufficed. Patients with “silent hypoxia”—low oxygen levels without distress—were sedated and intubated unnecessarily, resulting in preventable deaths from complications like ventilator-associated pneumonia and multi-organ failure.
Meanwhile, treatments that could have helped, like dexamethasone, were either dismissed or delayed. The clinical trial in June 2020 showed that this low-cost steroid cut deaths by one-third in ventilated patients, but by then, months had already passed.
So, what went wrong? A combination of misdiagnosis, censorship, and suppression of reason. Public health leaders followed panic and centralised narratives instead of data. Hospitals enforced homogenised care, erasing individual patient contexts in favour of algorithmic treatment pathways. Families were banned from the bedside, unable to advocate for their loved ones.
It's a tragic reminder that in times of crisis, critical thinking and individualised care are paramount. We must learn from these mistakes to ensure that hospitals remain centres of healing, not harm. Although we are some years after the peak of this pandemic, the excesses are only now being exposed. If we are to avoid this recurring, it is critical to review every aspect of the failures that occurred and hold to account those who failed in their duties to their patients.
For a more in-depth look, you can read the full article here:
👉 How Hospitals Became Killing Centres
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