Health Providers Warned Against Giving Biased Care During Crisis (2)

Health-care providers must ensure they don’t discriminate on the basis of disability as they make treatment decisions during the Covid-19 pandemic, the HHS said.

People with disabilities shouldn’t be denied care based on stereotypes or judgments about a person’s quality of life, the U.S Department of Health and Human Services’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) said in a bulletin issued on Saturday. Rather, providers should make decisions about treatment on an “individualized assessment of the patient based on the best available objective medical evidence,” it said.

The bulletin follows two complaints filed by disability advocates with the OCR, which raised ...