Ethical Issues in Healthcare: A Case Study of Amos from Malawi, Australia

Running head: BACHELOR NURSING ASSIGNMENT
BACHELOR NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Name of the Patient
Name of the University
Author note

1BACHELOR NURSING ASSIGNMENT
The World Health Organisation constitution 1946 determined that each individual present
in this world possess the right to achieve the highest attainable healthcare (Elger, Handtke &
Wangmo, 2015). Therefore, according to this legislation, it is the responsibility of the state's or
territory's healthcare facilities to provide the patients in need with accurate, timely, accessible
and affordable care with provision of safe and healthy potable water, food, health information
and education, shelter sanitation and gender equality, as determinants of quality healthcare
(Beecher & Henry, 2017). Further, the healthcare facility should not discriminate among patients
due to their age, race, ethnicity, or other personal or professional status. For the purpose, each
nation develops few ethical and professional codes for healthcare professionals, compliance with
which is necessary for them. In this assignment a case of a student Amos from Malawi, Australia
will be discussed. Further, the ethical issues, the violence of right to healthcare and professional
code of conduct will be discussed in the light of the given case study.
Amos was a student in a school in Malawi, Australia and was residing in a residential
property away from the school. There were other students who used to live within the school's
boarding facility. While facing a cholera outbreak, entire students of the school were admitted to
a nearby hospital. The symptoms include severe muscle cramp, abdominal pain, watery diarrhea,
vomiting and thrust and hence required instant healthcare interventions. However, due to the
presence of less healthcare facility, the healthcare facility decided to provide health care to
students who were living in school boarding, ignoring the healthcare needs of others. This was
the primary and biggest violation of healthcare ethical principles as the healthcare professionals
rejected the healthcare need and urgency of Amos. The severity of the consequences was such
that Amos had to lose his life due to the decision of the healthcare facility (Elger, Handtke &
Wangmo, 2015). Therefore, according to the rights of healthcare, the healthcare facilities

2BACHELOR NURSING ASSIGNMENT
breached the ethics related to justice, veracity, utilitarian, non-maleficence, and beneficence.
These are the basic healthcare ethical principles that are implemented in the healthcare facility to
protect the patients' rights to achieve quality care (May et al., 2014).
The ethics of utilitarian decide the right or wrong of any action by determining its
consequences. In the given case study, the healthcare facility was aware of the situation of the
locality and the cholera outbreak as the entire students in the school and the community were
affected with cholera and went to the healthcare facility for treatment. However, despite knowing
the adverse effect of healthcare refusal, the refused to treat Amos and returned him from the
healthcare facility. Thereby, according to Stahl et al. (2014), the facility breached the healthcare
policy and ethics related to Utilitarian. Further, the other healthcare ethics related to non-
maleficence, beneficence, veracity, and justice was breached. The ethical principle of autonomy
determined that the healthcare facility does not possess any right to take steps that can affect the
patients' health positively or negatively. Therefore, it is the duty of healthcare facilities to
mention the intervention, prior to application on a patient. However, in the case study, without
providing prior information to Amos or providing him a chance to shift in a nearby healthcare
facility, the hospital stopped providing treatment to Amos, the consequence of which was his
death. The third ethical principle which was violated was non-maleficence, according to which, it
is the responsibility of the healthcare facilities to take care of the patients is that they cannot be
harmed through the actions, policies or healthcare interventions, intentionally or unintentionally
(Kanekar & Bitto, 2012). This helps to protect the healthcare autonomy right of the patient.
However, in the case study, the action performed by the healthcare facility was intentional and
through proper strategy, they refused to provide Amos with healthcare interventions so that those
medicines and services can be provided to students living in boarding. This action was not a