The Importance of Health Care Ethics
Discuss about the Essay On Health Care Ethics.
The health care ethics are one of the most important content in the recent days. The ethical issues such as, discrimination in access to the health care, end life issue and allocation of limited medication have become one of the most controversial discussions (Faden et al., 2013). The case study is about Amos, a high school student, who was resided in a residential property near the school. During the outburst of cholera in the school, most of the students were suffering from the transmissible disease. Amos was not spared from the disease. Severe symptoms that were noticed within the students admitted in the hospital include abdominal pain, vomiting, thirst, profuse watery diarrhea, muscle cramp, irritability and restlessness. Due to shortage of adequate resources, the triage doctors and nurses decided to provide health services only to the student residing in the boarding of the school. Amos decided to return home as he was not a boarder, but within few hours of his arrival, he died due to severe dehydration and shock.
There are many ethical issues regarding health care. According to the case study, the main issue is equal access to the health care services to all. It is the purpose of every health care service providers to make their service equally available to all people. All patients are needed to be considered as equally important. Equal access to the health care service is the basic right of all people. Thus, the issue has become an important part of the discussion regarding health care ethics (Kangasniemi et al., 2013). Another ethical issue related to the case study is limited allocation of common goods (Doody & Noonan, 2016). Adequate medicine and resource scarcity occurs mainly due to the lack of economic resources. Proper medication and vaccination are required in case of communicable diseases. Shortage of medication makes it difficult to provide the treatment to all the people with need. End of life issue is an additional ethical issue of health care regarding the case study. Shortage of medical resources and unequal access to the health care services can be the reason behind the death of a patient. The issue of end of life is increasing day by day with the increase in global population. Thus, it becomes one of the most affecting ethical issues related to health care service (Lillemoen & Pedersen, 2013).
The Case Study: Amos and the Outbreak of Cholera
Human dignity in the field of health care is an important factor to be maintained (Edlund et al., 2013). It is important to provide ethical behavior and value to every patient. In the case study, the triage nurses and doctors decided to limit the treatment to the student residing in the boarding. This was unethical, as all the students had received the illness within the school. It was the duty of the health care professionals to take the responsibility of all the students. Amos had argued with the school authority that while residing in the residential property, he was still a student of the school. It was the duty of the concerned authority to provide proper treatment considering his severe health condition. Though his argument regarding help did not work and he was sent back to home without any health care service. Thus, the decision of the doctors and the nurses of providing limited health care service was a step taken to give value to some students and hamper the dignity of many others. The main reason of restricting the health services was shortage of adequate medical resources. The students who were residing within the school premises were the first priority of the concerned authority. Thus, the authority decided to provide the limited medicines to them only. However, the purpose of every health care organization is to provide equal medical service to all. It is the right of every individual to avail adequate health care service including proper medication, food, healthy lifestyle and healthy environment to live. In order to provide medication to the boarders the health care professionals neglected the severe condition of the other students residing outside the school premises. It was a case of enforcement of human rights. Amos was the student of the school when he was suffering from Cholera; hence, it was his right to access treatment from the health care professionals who had taken the responsibility of other students residing in the boarding. Their action of sending Amos back to home without treatment was unethical regarding the violation of human rights. On the other hand, it was a dilemma for the health care professionals that whether they would distribute the medicine among the students equally without ensuring the adequate amount of medicine needed by the individual or they would provide it to the students residing in the school premises doing injustice to the students residing outside the boarding. However, according to the professional codes of ethics in nursing, it is important for a health care professional to respect the human dignity and human rights (Council, 2013). In the nursing profession, nurses value the needs of the patients and their families. They try to understand the nature of the disease in order to prevent or cure the illness. They make strategies regarding the interests of the patients to improve the relationship with the patients. The health care professionals never exploit a patient for their personal benefits. It is a factor of professional code to provide appropriate information to the patients regarding the treatment and help them to understand the process of the treatment. The professional code never allows the health care professionals to neglect the seriousness of a patient. Collaboration is another component of professional code of ethics. It refers to the cooperation of the health care professionals and the team effort to achieve expected outcomes. According to the professional code of ethics in nursing, the most important duty of a health care professional is to ensure the health condition, safety, dignity and rights of the patients. There are many policies and regulations in order to ensure the dignity and rights of the patients. The health care policies are provided by both the private and government organizations. The Human Right Act, 1998, is one of the most beneficial acts. According to the act, it is one of the rights of every individual to avail proper health care service and they have right to take legal steps against the enforcement of human rights (Donnelly, 2013). The Equality Act, 2010, provides equal access to the health care service to all (Geale, Henriksson & Schmitt?Egenolf, 2016). Such acts play an important role in ensuring the human dignity and human rights. In Australia, many organizations provide proper guidance to the health care professionals. The Australian Primary Health Care Nurses Association provides guidance to the nurses to improve their service (Halcomb et al., 2016). It provides adequate education to the health care professionals to better understand the profession and inspire them for providing efficient service. National Primary Health Care Partnership plays an important role in order to provide primary health care service (Schäfer et al., 2013). The role of such organizations in providing guidance to the health care professionals is remarkable. The principles of health care ethics include autonomy, justice, beneficence and non-maleficence (Melby et al., 2016). Autonomy refers to the right of the patients to thought and make decision regarding the health care process. It is important for every patient to understand the benefits and risks of every treatment procedure. They need to be informed properly by the health care professionals before availing the treatment. Justice is defined as the equal distribution of the ideas of new research and technology regarding health care service and their benefits to all (Almgren, 2017). In order to evaluate the principle of justice, it is important to consider the factors like equal distribution of medical resources, rights and dignity of all patients, competing needs and conflicts with implemented legislation. Beneficence means to make understand all the patients that the health care service is provided for their benefits. It ensures that, adequate education and training is provided to the health care professionals in order to improve their efficiency of providing service. Non-maleficence refers to the process of treatment that is harmless to the individual. Sometimes it becomes difficult for the health care professionals to provide completely harmless treatment. In this case, they need to ensure that, the treatment provides less harm and more benefits to the patients.
The Ethics of Equal Access to Health Care Services
From the above case study, it can be said that, the purpose of health care professionals is to provide equal service to all. It is their duty to understand the needs of the individual and ensure the dignity and rights of the patients. Due to some consequence, for example, shortage of medical resources, the health care service is not available equally to all. The health care professionals need to understand the seriousness of the illness of individual. They should make access their service to all in order to build trust within people. Their priority should focus the severe condition rather than region or community. They need to understand the importance of their service in providing health and wellness to the society.
References:
Almgren, G. (2017). Health care politics, policy, and services: a social justice analysis. Springer publishing company.
Council, S. A. N. (2013). Code of ethics for nursing practitioners in South Africa. Pretoria: South African Nursing Council, 3-5.
Donnelly, J. (2013). Universal human rights in theory and practice. Cornell University Press.
Doody, O., & Noonan, M. (2016). Nursing research ethics, guidance and application in practice. British Journal of Nursing, 25(14), 803-807.
Edlund, M., Lindwall, L., Post, I. V., & Lindström, U. Å. (2013). Concept determination of human dignity. Nursing ethics, 20(8), 851-860.
Faden, R. R., Kass, N. E., Goodman, S. N., Pronovost, P., Tunis, S., & Beauchamp, T. L. (2013). An ethics framework for a learning health care system: a departure from traditional research ethics and clinical ethics. Hastings Center Report, 43(s1).
Geale, K., Henriksson, M., & Schmitt?Egenolf, M. (2016). Evaluating equality in psoriasis healthcare: a cohort study of the impact of age on prescription of biologics. British Journal of Dermatology, 174(3), 579-587.
Halcomb, E., Stephens, M., Bryce, J., Foley, E., & Ashley, C. (2016). Nursing competency standards in primary health care: an integrative review. Journal of clinical nursing, 25(9-10), 1193-1205.
Kangasniemi, M., Vaismoradi, M., Jasper, M., & Turunen, H. (2013). Ethical issues in patient safety: implications for nursing management. Nursing ethics, 20(8), 904-916.
Lillemoen, L., & Pedersen, R. (2013). Ethical challenges and how to develop ethics support in primary health care. Nursing ethics, 20(1), 96-108.
Melby, M. K., Loh, L. C., Evert, J., Prater, C., Lin, H., & Khan, O. A. (2016). Beyond medical “missions” to impact-driven short-term experiences in global health (STEGHs): ethical principles to optimize community benefit and learner experience. Academic Medicine, 91(5), 633-638.
Schäfer, W. L., Boerma, W. G., Kringos, D. S., De Ryck, E., Greß, S., Heinemann, S., … & Van den Berg, M. J. (2013). Measures of quality, costs and equity in primary health care: instruments developed to analyse and compare primary health care in 35 countries. Qual Prim Care, 21(2), 67-79.
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