The Unintended Harms of the Covid-19 Visitors Restrictions in End-of-Life Care Camille Irvine, Masters Student (University of Guelph) The COVID-19 visitor restrictions, as the public health response to the pandemic, have revealed that a clinical bioethical framework (with its philosophical roots stemming from the individualistic biomedical model) does not provide proper care for dying persons, family members, and care staff. The COVID-19 visitor restrictions are necessary precautions in preventing the COVID-19 virus from rapidly spreading among spaces of vulnerable persons (characteristic of end of life health care spaces). I want to be overt in expressing that this paper is not meant to dismiss nor question the crucial role that empirical work in disease control entails. Instead, this paper will explore how the visitor restrictions, in themselves, prohibit end of life care for family members, patients and why they cause significant moral distress for caretakers. To show that this is the case, I distinguish between individualistic care approaches and relational care approaches, noting the underlying principles that govern each approach. Where the biomedical model's philosophical nature is individualistic, the philosophical roots of end-oflife care models are relational. By looking at the core values, principles, and philosophical underpinnings of end-of-life care in Canada, I aim to show how the COVID-19 visitor restrictions prohibit the ability to provide quality care for the dying and why these restrictions so adversely affect these spaces of care. I will reject the philosophical principles that underpin individualistic care models in the context of long-term care and palliative care units, arguing that biomedical clinical space is that which promises these individualistic principles in practice. A contradictory care space is a practice of care that faces barriers to being in such a space. In conjunction with a clinical bioethics’ pandemic response, biomedical clinical space is incompatible with the practices of medicine founded on relational values and principles (namely, end of life care). As seen through the lens of feminist bioethics, I will be arguing on behalf of relational theories of care and introducing a relational understanding of autonomy in the context of end-oflife care (Sherwin and Stockdale 2017). I aim to invoke recognition over the inherently contradictory space created when a relational model of care falls under the ethical jurisdiction of an individualistic ethical framework. Ultimately, this paper strives to advocate that the appropriate ethical framework for approaching end of life care ethics is a feminist relational approach. Gnosis | 19.1 (2021)
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