The last hospital bed

Nurse: (worried) doctor, we cannot flip the coin like we´ve been doing before. We had 20
dead patients last week.

Doctor: (sad playing with a coin in their hands) heads or tails?

Nurse: (upset) don´t make me do it doctor. I will never do it again.

-The secretary enters the room-

Secretary: excuse me doctor, we have 3 new patients, all extremely seriously. They´ve
been taken to the ICU.

Doctor: How come, Ally? You know we don´t have available beds! I let them know
yesterday. I´m here with the nurse flipping a damn coin to choose who gets the ventilator,
to choose who lives or dies. Don´t you get it? (yelling).

Secretary: with a coin? What are you telling me? Since when is that ethical? (very angry).

Doctor: (ironically) from the moment this pandemic appeared and as long as there have
been massive infections due to a disease.

Secretary: I respected you, but how can I keep this for myself? I will report you with the
hospital authorities (they try to get out of the room but the doctor gets in their way with a
look of threat).

Doctor: listen Ally, you’re working here thanks to me! You’re going to shut your mouth
and keep doing your job, I will resolve this situation my way (taking the new patient’s
records of their hands and pushes them to the door).

-the secretary goes away crying-

Nurse: what are we going to do now? (sits in a chair holding their head in their hands
desperate for a solution).

Doctor: let me see those records. Hold the coin.

Pi… pi… pi… pi… pi… code blue

Nurse: doctor, a patient is having a heart attack! (they run to the door but the doctor stops
them).

Doctor: (with an authoritative tone) You stay here, you didn't hear anything!!! (sure of
what he's doing, he continues to inspect the files as if nothing had happened).

Nurse: (crying desperately, and almost unable to speak) But doctor, we are here to save
lives, not to send sick people to the next world!!!

Doctor: (in a reassuring tone) Calm down, help me decide. We have one less patient in the
ICU. The one who has surely passed away because we did not assist him. We have 3 new
patients coming in. And I'll tell you: 1, he is 81 years old, do you want to tell me what his
chances of life are, knowing that he came in with pancreatitis??? Patient 2 is 61 years old,
terminal cancer with metastasis in several organs, what would be his survival
probabilities??? And patient 3, is 72 years old, has sepsis as a result of abandonment due to
shame of an anal infection. Can you believe he didn't consult out of shame??? And now he
comes to occupy a bed so necessary for so many patients???

Nurse: (silent from the horror of having in her hand the coin that she will surely flip by
order of the doctor and that will definitively decide on the life of one of the 3 patients)
Don't force me doctor!!! (trying to escape from such a situation).

Doctor: do you know something? They forgot to put a name here, they are idiots!!! That's
not what they're for!!! (annoyed) Come on, flip the coin, we don't have much time... If it
comes up heads, patient 1 stays and if it comes up tails, patient 2. We won't consider patient
3 for being irresponsible!!!

Nurse: (crying and at the same time very annoyed by the comments made by the doctor,
she lifts the coin into the air and drops it on the back of her hand. She covers it with the
other and tries not to look).

Doctor: Let's see woman, let me see. (taking away the hand that was hiding the coin) well,
its tails, it’s already decided, patient 2 gets the ventilator. (He leaves the files in the office
and goes to the therapy room to prepare the bed that was already empty due to the death of
the unassisted patient).

Nurse: (crying with grief and without wanting to accept the situation, she follows the
doctor to his task).

(Both go out into the corridor and see 3 stretchers with the patients who had been placed
before the value of the heads or tails of a coin. They ask for the name of patient 2 and while
they are entering the ICU, a very loud voice is heard…

Patient 3: Son!!! Son!!! How lucky you are here on call.

END