1 Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine.
2 Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland.
Ann Am Thorac Soc. 2017 Dec;14(12):1744-1746. doi: 10.1513/AnnalsATS.201706-471OI.
Although family is an essential unit of every society, many intensive care units continue to impose limitations on families' access to their loved ones. Unlimited family presence is backed both by data and the guidelines of multiple professional societies. We propose that the obligation to protect the integrity and needs of our patients and families extends past our immediate relationship to them at the bedside, and is also a societal imperative. In a society rife with implicit bias, restrictions on family visitation risk selective enforcement of these rules, and further propagate social injustice. Restrictions on family presence, including rigid hours, reflect an arbitrary vision based on increasingly obsolete socioeconomic realities. The time is now to open our intensive care units both on behalf of our patients and families, and for the betterment of our society as a whole.
尽管家庭是每个社会的基本单位，但许多重症监护病房仍然对家属探视他们的亲人施加限制。无限制的家属探视既得到了数据的支持，也得到了多个专业协会的指南的支持。我们认为，保护患者及其家属的完整性和需求的义务不仅延伸到我们与他们在床边的直接关系，而且也是一种社会需要。在一个充斥着隐性偏见的社会中，对探视的限制有可能导致这些规则的选择性执行，并进一步加剧社会不公。对家属探视的限制，包括僵化的探视时间，反映了一种基于日益过时的社会经济现实的任意观念。现在是时候为了我们的患者和家属，以及为了我们整个社会的利益，开放我们的重症监护病房了。
