Challenges to Healthcare in India

Running head: ASSESSMENT 5 HEALTH CARE PROBLEM ANALYSIS
ASSESSMENT 5 HEALTH CARE PROBLEM ANALYSIS
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ASSESSMENT 5 HEALTH CARE PROBLEM ANALYSIS2
Malpractice and negligence in Healthcare
On a regular basis, patient, family member and healthcare staffs face an ethical and
legal issue. These are related to medical practice, treatment procedure, hospital management
and others that are critical in the health sector. The ethical problems in healthcare require
immediate retort and thus, require careful considerations, for example, the issue of abortion
or use of experimental drugs on terminally ill patients (Hummel, Saxena & Klingler, 2018).
Various ethical theories and principles are associated with these issues and distinguishing
between wrong and right need to be done in a critical manner. The paper aims to discuss an
ethical problem, malpractice and negligence that has a profound impact on the healthcare
settings.
Medical malpractice is considered to be an omission or negligent act on behalf of any
medical practitioner that may cause harm or injury to a patient (Abpla.org, 2020). The
negligence can be an outcome of errors occurring in diagnosis, health management, treatment
or aftercare. According to the report published by Johns Hopkins Hospital in 2016, it was
found that medical errors result in the death of 250000 people annually, most of which lead to
legal cases. According to Berlin (2019), the interrelationship between law and biomedical
ethics are apparent on the boundaries of medical malpractice. It can be stated that most of the
tie, ethical and legal aspects and conduct are in tandem, however, in many cases, the ethical
principles and issues are bounded by medical liability and thus, appear to be in conflict. In a
case, a pregnant woman was admitted to a reputed hospital for delivery. She was operated, a
baby boy was born, and a few days later, she was discharged. After ten days, she was having
a severe stomachache and was admitted immediately to a nearby hospital, where it was
diagnosed that it was a case of retention of foreign objects such as gauge that was left inside
her after the operation. Wui et al. (2017) opined that retained foreign objects are a case of
serious complication where the term ‘gossypiboma’ is used for referring a mass composed of

ASSESSMENT 5 HEALTH CARE PROBLEM ANALYSIS3
cotton retained in the human body. The other items that are commonly found in such cases
include artery forceps, abdominal towels, broken medical instruments, rubber tubes, or
irrigating sets. The actual frequency of such cases is difficult to assess because it may arise
legal repercussions. As per the estimation, 15000 cases occur on an annual basis in the U.S.,
and the mortality rate in such cases is approximately 11 to 35% that emphasize the graveness
of the issue (Stimson, 2016). In the medical system, adjudicating tort and medical practice
can be defined by four components, responsibility, and breach of duty, causation and damage.
While conducting a legal proceeding, the juries are initiated that these four aspects need to be
present for the plaintiff in order to meet the liability of proof and the defendant can be stated
guilty of malpractice or negligence in the medical practice. From the perspective of Kantian
ethics, an act is stated to be morally appropriate if it is conducted with the aim of duty and
obligation rather than self-interest. Furthermore, it is noted from the ethical theory, that one
should be truthful in all situations irrespective of the consequence (Epstein, 2018). In the
above stated case, the doctor failed to detect the cotton mass in the abdomen of the patient
before discharge. As per the medical norm, it is critical to check the patient completely before
discharging, an essential practice that was neglected. Initially, if it were detected, it would not
turn into sepsis and would help in mitigating the additional cost of hospital admission.
According to Wilkinson (2017), futile treatment is defined as the intervention that does not
have any benefits to a patient having a medical condition or attain any goals. In the given
scenario, the incomplete diagnosis of a patient prior to discharge demonstrates that the
doctors or nurses were unprofessional and do not have the right of offering futile treatment
which affects the patient and family members at the same time. This is because it increases
the suffering level and troubles of the patient and enhances the financial burden as well as the
psychological distress of the family. From the opinion of Rynecki et al. (2018), the ethical
obligations of healthcare staffs are the most vital aspect of the suits related to medical