Backlar P, McFarland B H
Center for Ethics in Health Care, Oregon Health Sciences University.
HEC Forum. 1993 Sep;5(5):302-18; discussion 319-21. doi: 10.1007/BF01560484.
Clozapine (Clozaril) is a new, powerful, costly anti-psychotic medicine, with a possible serious side effect (agranulocytosis) that entails weekly blood monitoring. In a three hundred bed state mental hospital that is allotted thirty clozapine slots (high costs effectively rationing this drug), a woman with schizophrenia responds minimally to this medication. Her attending physician wishes to withdraw the medicine and give it to another patient with schizophrenia on the ward who might have a better response. The woman's family threatens to make a public outcry. Both the attending physician and the family ask the HEC for a consult.
