The cabinet member, whom you work for, was shocked to discover that British Columbia is at high risk for a large magnitude earthquake within near future. Part of his portfolio covers emergency medical response in disasters. In viewing news footage from disasters in Japan and New Zealand, he has become particularly concerned about what will happen with young children (10 years and younger) and very senior adults (age 80+) if they should be displaced or relocated during a wide scale disaster and are unable to provide health or identity information to responders if needed. When his dog, Sunny, the Golden Retriever, escaped from the back yard last week, the dog was reunited with the family when Animal Control found his identification information via his microchip. Spurred on by this happy reunification, your minister is pondering if something similar might work for those young kids and much older adults. Specifically, he is contemplating if kids and adults should be microchipped (implanted microchip read by specialized scanners). The microchip would contain their basic identification information and emergency medical information (diagnosis history, allergies, current medications, surgical history and physician of record). The microchipping procedure can be done easily in a physician’s office with a local numbing agent and has very few medical complications associated with it (based on veterinary studies). In order to encourage people to have this done, he is thinking that not only will the cost of the procedure be covered by MSP, but also persons with a “BC Emergency Chip” will receive a 10% discount on their MSP premiums for 5 years. He recognizes that this would be a big undertaking and is not sure he understands what all of the ethical issues might be. He would like you to write an executive briefing (less than 6 double spaced pages) for him. Your briefing should include the following: • A cover page with your full name in it (not included in a page count) • Your recommendation for action or no action on this item o If your recommendation has caveats (conditions that must be met), these need to be clearly identified as part of your recommendations
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