Rule of Rescue

[2] They argue the application of the rule leads to injustice and a suboptimal health outcome under the constraint of limited resources.

In order to avoid framing doctors in an “inhuman role” of deciding at the patients' bedside on the basis of cost effectiveness, they plead for “division of labour” between governments/institutions that allocate the resources on basis of cost effectiveness and doctors who try to save lives within given constraints, for which constraints they are not held personally responsible or liable.

Resource allocation decision making broadly follows cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA), while emergency room and related ‘bedside’ decision-making is much closer to rescue reasoning.

[citation needed] Most states have ignored cost-effectiveness analysis in applying lockdowns and delaying regular medical interventions with the “Rule of rescue”-argument during the 2020-2021 Covid-19 pandemic.

In an unconstrained situation without conflicting interests, the rule of rescue leads to rightly perceived results, without causing (macro) problems.