Ethics in Heathcare Essay Example

Introduction

Healthcare is the initiative of improving people well-being through the employment of required medical procedures or preventives in a health care system. The healthcare system consisting of trained personnel, organizations and hospitals is the one service industry that runs every hour of the clock, one with busy corridors from dawn to dusk, 24-hour working schedules and the only place one can walk to at any time of day or night without the fear of finding a 'closed' sign on the door. Life is created and lost, patients check while others are checked out, a kidney is donated in one and transplanted in another, and all these activities take place in attempts to produce quality healthcare. The healthcare ethics entails the moral principles governing how to make choices concerning medical care. This paper seeks to highlight the ethics issue in healthcare which includes ethical challenges and possible remedies to help overcome them.

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The healthcare ethical duties are defined by four major principles which are; honoring of patients decision making a right, treatment of all cases in an equal and fair way, causing no harm to any patient or colleague, and beneficence. The healthcare system has of recent been faced with some ethics issues as elaborated below:

End-of-life Issues

The patients have their desire concerning ending their lives but their families at time emphasis to make the decisions on their behalf which put the medical practitioners in a fix. The solution to this issue is the healthcare stakeholders should come up with a clear set policy stating the guidelines of making the decision and implementation taking into consideration the fact that some patients may be in a situation which they cannot make logic conclusions due to their state.

Relationships

Sexual relationships which involve both touching's of someone's genitalia or any sexual intercourse between healthcare personnel and patients or between two medical practitioners in a healthcare amenity is impermissible, but of late cases, such cases have been on the rise. Sexual harassment harms the parties involved thus lowering the quality of service offered by decreasing the patient's outcome and collegiality thus should be discouraged. The hospital staff should be informed on the implications the vice can have and encouraged to refrain from it since by so doing they have an upper hand of providing efficient and effective work.

Contracting diseases from patients In the process of treating

Health staffs are always at risk of acquiring the diseases from the patients, this can well be elaborated by the Ebola outbreak in West Africa where the healthcare providers were required to put great caution to avoid becoming victims of the same. The ethical issue is when personnel attends to patients without being aware of health history hence by mistake acquiring the disease mostly in blood-transmitted diseases like HIV and AIDS or communicable diseases like Tuberculosis. The government should ensure they have a set legal order requiring all the patients to give their health record to health care providers before getting treatments thus helping control the situation.

Medical research inefficiency

In 2016 Dr. Paolo Macchiarini was in the spotlight for the death of seven patients resulting from the faulty medical research he had provided (Kremer, 2016). The above mentioned is an example of an ethical issue which is facing the healthcare resulting from the allocation of minimum resources on research related to the wellbeing of the citizens thus the researchers strain to use the little amounts allocated thus not conducting all the laboratory tests required with the belief that they can use the theory they have learned. To address this issue, the government focus on quality healthcare should include god allocation in research which helps find solutions to the diseases, and thus medical researchers are avoiding conflicting with healthcare system ethics guiding principles.

Keeping patients information private and confidential

The talks between the doctor and the patients should not be shared since they are always the patient's medical condition, but there are many scenarios where the medical practitioners have leaked out the patient's information causing trauma resulting from discrimination if the disease is dreadful. There are acts which are already set to ensure that does not happen therefore the authority should take charge and follow the legal measures once such a practitioner is convicted.

Sustainability of the healthcare workforce

The populations are increasing hence need more healthcare facilities and professionals to achieve the set healthcare system ethics (Larson, 2013). The issue is that there are no compassionate people ready to venture and remain in the profession to provide sufficient care. The healthcare stakeholders should come up with strategies to encouraging young people to venture into the field and also on how to sustain and build the healthcare system to cater for not only today but also future patients.

Marketing practices

Most hospitals spend much on putting up billboards or designing websites to ensure they have reached as many citizens as possible on their service or improved technology. There has been ethics issue on the spending on advertising thus to overcome the challenge the hospital should set up a committee to help review the hospitals marketing practices ensuring the right amount is channeled to the same.

Provision of high-quality healthcare against efficiency

The quality is essential and should be majorly focused on, but the hospitals with the increased number of patients have always prioritized efficiency to quality: This has resulted to going against the ethics since the hospital has to ensure everyone has received quality health care. The hospitals should increase the facilities and the personnel to effectively and efficiently provide service to the patients despite the increasing numbers.

Hierarchies of power

In most cases, the nurses had been overlooked by their colleagues in the field like doctors. The nurses work to ensure collegiality, and increased patients' outcome thus should not be looked down upon because they are always with the patients most times. The healthcare personnel should understand that despite the superiority they need to work in unity to achieve the best quality of service offered.

Conclusion

Healthcare system is the backbone of any society because a sick society cannot adequately perform any task, but despite this, the sector has faced many ethics issues in the recent past despite the attempts to make it one of the best. The dynamic nature of the society has contributed to most of these challenges, but the solutions are also available hence it is easy to solve the issues. It is through relations between the stakeholders and the government that the systems' ethics issues will be outdone therefore close working amongst them should be emphasized with each party playing their roles to ensure success. The leaders should involve their colleagues in decision making so that they can feel part of the set strategies and policies thus readily adopting them.

References

Kremer, W. (2016). Paolo Macchiarini: A surgeon's downfall. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37311038

Larson, Jennifer. (2013). Top Ethical Issues in Healthcare. Retrieved from https://www.amnhealthcare.com/latest-healthcare-news/five-top-ethical-issues-in-healthcare/