I'm the boss of a hospital with only one dialysis machine that can run for 30 hours per week. I have many patients who require the treatment but my machine is limited and can only do so much leaving me with the bad luck of opertunity cost and forceing me to pick some patients while sadly leaving out others. Here is my order of preference for how I will allocate the 30 hours based on the patients I chose.

 

1. PatientA: 6 year old child who needs 10 hours per week. They are awaiting a kidney transplant which is  expected to occur in one year.

 

2. Patient G: 30 year old female, two young children, 6 hours per week.

 

3. Patient E : 7 year old child, has three brothers and sisters, 4 hours per week.

 

4. Patient K: A 65 year old man who requires 10 hours per week. As he has quite wealthy, he has promised  to buy another dialysis machine for the hospital if he is still alive in one year’s time.

 

After some time of hard thinking and brain swelling these are the patients I have chosen. I chose patient A for he is but a 6 year old child who is waiting for his kidney transplant in about a year. We will help him survive as his survival is more likely than others. I chose patient G because of the fact that she is a mother of two young children and children need their mom. It would break my heart knowing that their mother died as there is no pain worse than loosing a mother. I chose patient E because he is a 7 year old child with siblings who will be heart broken if their brother/sister is lost, not to mention the pain his/her parents will feel. I chose patient K as he has promised to buy the hospital another dialysis device is he is still alive in one year. I know this is a huge risk and I could save two other patients with the hours he takes but it is worth it if we are successful. I will take the risk hoping that in the future we'll have two machines allowing us for more patients and extending the amount of lives we can save.