Should Children be allocated more Health Care Resources than Elderly?

Should Children be allocated more Health Care Resources than Elderly? 1
Should children be allocated more health care resources than elderly?
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Should Children be allocated more Health Care Resources than Elderly? 2
Introduction
The health care system in Australia is facing a shortage of resources that is mainly dependent
on funding shortfalls. The context of scarcity implies that we have to face difficult choices
regarding the allocation of these limited resources that we will decide to invest (or not) in a
particular area of care. In order to better understand the nature of these allocation issues, the
first step is to understand that the management of the health system involves three decision-
making levels: hospital managers, directors of regional boards and provincial ministers.
Secondly, because of the social significance of these decisions, the eminently ethical nature
of the issues and the structural complexity of the system (Dauwerse, van der Dam & Abma,
2012 p.693). The Australia health care system is public. As a result, all government resources
allocated to health are fully funded by tax revenues. There are, however, several decision-
making levels in the allocation of resources. Since these resources are limited, it is interesting
to examine the choices made and some of the challenges facing professionals, managers and
the government in allocating health resources. It is thus the goal of this paper to answer
questions such as: What are the criteria for a good decision on the allocation of resources in
health services and social services? What individual or collective rights and responsibilities
are we testing? Should children care be allocated more resources? Why? Should elderly be
allocated more resources? Why? What ethical principles should guide such decisions? If
hospital resources are not enough, how are decisions made about who will receive care and
who will be deprived of it, who will benefit from the latest technological advances and the
latest drugs, or who will have to wait much longer? long before others get services? This is
the ethical question that hospital managers and boards of directors, as well as physicians who
make all medical decisions and who are responsible for the care of their patients, must
answer.
Ethical frameworks to be used

Should Children be allocated more Health Care Resources than Elderly? 3
There is no single ethical framework that can be used to decide whether children or
elderly should receive more resource allocation (Yao & MacEntee, 2014 p.10). This is
because the idea of access to care in an environment where resources are limited requires one
to consider different perspectives. One of the ethical perspectives that should be used is the
right-based ethics or deontological ethics. These ethics expects us to follow existing laws,
conventions and treaties. From legal perspective, both children and elderly should receive the
resources. According to the law, health is fundamental right for everyone and equal access to
care. Different declarations and international recommendations associate health care with
fundamental rights, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, in its article
25, which states: Everyone has the right to an adequate standard of living that ensures, as well
as to his family, health and well-being. The Additional Protocol to the American Convention
on Human Rights in the area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Article 17 provides
that every person has the right to special protection in old age and that States must
progressively, provide them with specialized medical assistance. It adds that elderly group is
entitled to right to health, to an adequate standard of living, to the prohibition of torture, legal
capacity and equality before the law (Reamer, 2013 p.87). The budgetary and financial
difficulties of the public power are not extinctive of the rights to health care, nor do they
cancel its enforceability and justiciability. However, these economic disadvantages may, in
the specific case, prevent or limit the exercise of rights to health, and also prevent the
emergence of them, insofar as they come to influence the environments of what is understood
as existential minimum. However, resource limitation hinders the fulfillment of existential
minimum (Sugiarto, Miwa & Morikawa, 2017 p.37). Scarce resources expect the health care
personnel to make hard decision on which of the competing parties should receive
preferential treatment or more resources (van der Dam, Molewijk, Widdershoven & Abma,
2014 p.627). This forces us to apply another ethical framework called utilitarian ethics in