Ethical Issues in Healthcare: A Case Study of a Student's Death

This essay examines the ethical implications of a student's death due to negligence and discrimination within a school's healthcare system. It analyzes the case study through the lens of healthcare ethics principles, including nonmaleficence, beneficence, autonomy, and justice. The essay highlights the importance of ethical practices in healthcare settings, particularly in educational institutions, and emphasizes the need for equitable treatment and responsible care for all students.

Ethics Assignment

Ethics Assignment
Introduction
Ethics are the part of society that teaches human rights and dignity for each and every citizen of
the country. Ethics are important to distinguish between the socio-cultural, religion and
philosophical aspects of the world. The health sector has considered ethical implications to be an
integral part of their management process. Most of the health sectors describe that the
hospitalities policies are affected by the ethics that are developed for the betterment of society.
Another functional area where ethics are applied in schooling. The thiss essay will be going to
describe about the incidence of a school who did not follow the ethics for managing the health of
a student. Due to the irresponsibility of medical staff and discrimination between residential and
boarding students, an innocent student lost his life.
Ethics is important in the profession of teaching for the teachers, students and the academic staff.
Students get aware of the policies of the school and adopt a culture to take their education. This
essay describes about the case study of ethical issues related to a school where a student lost his
life due to poor management (Gabr, 2002).
As mentioned in the article by Gluchmanova, (2015), the ethical dilemmas are designed to
eliminate the hurdles faced by teachers. Opting for teaching as a profession is a tough task to do.
But most of the people think to build constructive future of children and move the profession of
teaching.Ethical issues are the traditional method of performing some activities following certain
rules and regulations. These rules are not applied for teachers but also for students and the
academic staff. Ethics in school determine the cultural and moral value that is provided to the
student. Children have to be nurtured firmly at their very young age so that they can be a good
individual when they grow up. Schools have been opened to teach students about what is
happening in the world and how to attain good habits in life. The author describes about how the
ethical history has affected the transnational dialogue with the increased mobility. People have to
adhere to their limits when communicating with each other. They should not forget their moral
value when determining someone else’s mistakes. Schooling has been considered as the best
suitable option for the children to let them know about citizenship, socializing with other people,
behaviour and other cultural values. Therefore, schools should promote effective learning by

using different teaching domains. Thus, the most important role is played by the teachers.
Teachers have the capabilities to integrate cultural values in a student effectively. They are able
to understand the behaviour of a student and thereby teach them to be a good individual.
Ethical issues in Healthcare
 Care quality and efficiency- most of the healthcare systems are not responsible towards their
duty. They discriminate between the people for providing them with the required treatment.
For the health care systems, it is important to mange their patients efficiently. And, if there is
less or no availability of required resources, then the administrative staff of hospital should
take care of that.
 Improving access to care- the medical staff does not use the sufficient tools and equipment.
According to the Affordable Care Act (ACT), the healthcare organizations are provided with
the tools that are necessary for treatment. There are many health care programs which can be
started by the hospitals to provide free medical services to patients who could not pay their
medical bills.
 Building and sustaining the healthcare workforce- an effective team of doctors and other
medical staff is necessary to overcome any kind of chronic disease. Shortage of nursing staff
and related facilities will not be able to provide required treatment for a patient. Efficient
medical staff contributes to the sustainable development of health care organizations.
Recruitment of skilled staff benefits patients to take better treatments for their diseases
Larson (2013).
These were some of the ethical health care issues which were faced by the nearby hospital to
school. There were limited equipment and less nursing staff to take care of all the students
suffering from cholera. Amos got affected by these ethical issues that were raised in the hospital.
Due to discrimination between boarding and residential living students, Amos was not able to
take proper treatment and ultimately lost his life.
Principles of Health care Ethics
The principle of ethics is essential to build better foundation of providing ethical values to
human. These principles include justice, beneficence and so on. Summers and Morrison, (2009)
describes these Principles of Health care Ethics-

1) Nonmaleficence- This principle states that no human should harm other. Considering
health care industries, they have to provide relevant services to the patient to cure their
diseases. However, medical staff should not harm or worsen the condition of a patient.
Instead, they should try to save lives of a patient in every way possible.
2) Beneficence- this teaches moral to clinical staff to benefit the patients and not to think
about harming them. The ethical egoism should not disrupt the process of treatment. The
main aim of health care systems is to take care of people irrespective of their caste, creed
etc. Harm should not be considered when morality is the basic necessity for the health
care organizations.
3) Autonomy- this principle is related to self-ruling which mean that people have to respect
other people for who they are. There should not be any belief regarding a person’s
standard of living, status in the society and the place a person belongs to. Autonomy
principle is important for health care organizations to know whether a patient can take
decisions on their own or not. Patients have the freedom to choose appropriate treatments
for them. Most of the medical staff use certifications for continuing any surgery or
operation for a patient with his permission only.
4) Justice- This principle describes that every human has equal rights for accomplishing the
desired task. Everyone should get an opportunity to make their future better. There are
two categories of justice procedural justice and distributive justice. There should be the
availability of human resources for managing the patients visiting the hospital. Every
patient should be taken care off equally without any discrimination.
These were some of the principles of ethics that need to be followed by the health care
organizations. The hospital management should provide treatment to each and every student of
the school whether the student is from boarding or is living in some another area what is most
important is saving a life of an individual. What hospital authorities did to Amos is unacceptable
and is not considered as a sustainable growth. Due to discrimination and other related ethical
issues, a student has to lose his life without any fault. But it should be taken into consideration by
other schools and hospitals that are provide justice to all students.
Conclusion

Ethics describes about the human rights and dignity which needs to be followed by everyone. It
is the ethics which demonstrates the moral values a human posse. Every human has a right to
have dignity in the society. For being in a state of equilibrium by the healthcare organizations,
principles of ethics should be followed. The injustice that happened to Amos was not right and
there should be serious action taken against the hospital management. Also, if there were issues
regarding availability of medical equipment and medicines than the hospital staff should have
arranged it rather neglecting students who are not living in school boarding. However, ethical
issues should be followed by the school and hospitals as they have the responsibility of
numerous students who are studying there.
Recommendations for professional practice- While performing the health care services,
professionalism should be adopted by the medical staff. Humans should be considered as a
material thing when treating them. As the purpose of healthcare organizations is to take care of
patients who are ill, they should be responsible towards their duty. However, ethical values
should be followed as these are the part of moral values that are taught during an early stage or
being as a child Jones, (2015). After analysing the case study it has been recommended that-
 Wrong treatments should not be provided to any patient whether he belongs or does not
belongs to a society or similar culture.
 Hospitals should adopt the act of kindness and provide better health care services to the
individuals
 Medical staff members should be aware about the healthcare industry. Strangers to a disease
should not be hired to control any medical issues.
 Doctors should treat patients as the parents treat their child and should provide them good
health care services.
 Medical staff should follow the principle of autonomy when providing treatment to a patient.
Freedom to choose health care services should be given to patients.
 Healthcare organizations should keep in mind the principle of justice while curing a patient.
No human is big or small, medical staff should be available for each and every person who
require health care services.

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