The directors and administrators of hospitals, both state-run and private, were soon beating on the door of the minister in question, the minister for health, to express, along with the other relevant public services, their worries and anxieties, which, strange though it may seem, always highlighted logistical rather than health matters. They stated that the usual rotational process of patients coming in, getting better or dying had suffered, if we may put it like this, a short-circuit or, if you prefer a less technical term, a bottleneck, the reason being the indefinite stay of an ever larger number of patients who, given the seriousness of their illnesses or of the accidents of which they had been victims, would, in the normal course of events, have passed over into the next life. The situation is extremely grave, they argued, we have already started putting patients out in the corridors, even more frequently than we usually do, and everything indicates that in less than a week’s time, it will not only be the lack of beds we have to deal with, for with every corridor and every ward full, and given the lack of space and the difficulties of maneuvering, we will have to face the fact that we have no idea where to put any beds that are available. There is a way of solving the problem, concluded the people in charge of the hospitals, however it does, very slightly, infringe on the hippocratic oath, and the decision, were it to be taken, would have to be neither medical nor administrative, but political. Since a word to the wise is always enough, the minister for health, having consulted the prime minister, sent the following dispatch, With regard to the unavoidable overcrowding which is already beginning to have a seriously prejudicial effect on the hitherto excellent working of our hospital system and which is a direct consequence of the growing number of people being admitted in a state of suspended life and who will remain so indefinitely with no possibility of a cure or even of any improvement, at least not until medical research reaches the new goals it has set itself, the government advises and recommends hospital boards and administrations that, following a rigorous analysis, on a case-by-case basis, of the clinical situation of patients who find themselves in this position, and once the irreversibility of those morbid processes has been confirmed, the patients should be handed over to the care of their families, with hospitals taking full responsibility for ensuring that patients receive all the treatments and examinations their GPs deem to be either necessary or advisable. The government’s decision is based on a hypothesis within the grasp of everyone, namely that a patient in such a state, that is, permanently on the brink of a death which is permanently being denied to him, must, even during any brief moments of lucidity, be pretty much indifferent to where he is, whether in the loving bosom of his family or in a crowded hospital ward, given that, in neither place, will he manage to die or be restored to health. The government would like to take this opportunity to inform the population that investigations are continuing apace and these will, as we hope and trust, lead to a satisfactory understanding of the still mysterious causes of the disappearance of death. We would also like to say that a large interdisciplinary commission, including representatives from the various religions and philosophers from a variety of different schools of thought, who always have something to say about such matters, has been charged with the delicate task of reflecting on what a future without death will be like, at the same time trying to make a reasonable forecast of the new problems society will have to face, the principle of which some might summarize with this cruel question, What are we going to do with all the old people if death is not there to cut short any ambitions they may have to live an excessively long life.
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