Healthcare Liability During Public Health Emergencies: A Report

This report examines the role of liability in healthcare during public health emergencies, focusing on the behavior of government agencies, healthcare providers, and individuals. It explores how liability, or the lack thereof, influences actions in crisis situations like influenza outbreaks, natural disasters, and bioterrorism. The report highlights concerns such as inadequate resources, insufficient personnel, and barriers to optimal treatment. It also addresses the role liability should play in ensuring the safety of patients, the responsibilities of governmental and healthcare organizations, and the impact of liability on health laws and policies, including the right to health as per the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. References from various researchers support the arguments presented in this report.

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1. Role of liability in affecting how government agencies, healthcare providers, and
individuals behave during public health emergencies
Effective responses related to the public health regarding the emergencies which
are both natural and manmade requires decisive, timely and sometimes controversial
actions by the practitioners of the public health and the personnel. In case of public health
emergencies, as explained by Alirol et al. (2017) in the current era, liability does not
affect the behavior of the healthcare providers and the governmental agencies. This is
because emergencies arising from the influenza, natural disaster or bio terrorism attack
gives rise of numerous of the issues of liability. Inadequate resources, insufficient number
of qualified health care personnel, barriers in the provision of the optimal treatments and
the overwhelming demand for health services at an affordable rate has been expressed by
various of the researchers as the concern regarding the liability exposure.
2. Role that liability should play
Liability generally occurs when any person or entity is generally found to be
legally responsible for their actions or their failure for acting. In this scenario, the liability
of the government, the heath care organizations are in question towards their
effectiveness of their role in case of public health issues. It is taking the responsibility of
the public in case of major epidemics or health care issues in the name of community
development and the improvement and the restoration of the community health. Liability
should play a very essential role towards the case of the public health issue (Gostin &
Wiley, 2016). The institutions of powers including the governmental agencies and the

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health care organization have the liability towards the patients and the victims of the
public health concern.
It is the role of the liability to address the concerns of the volunteers and some of
the other personnel’s involved in the emergency responses together with ensuring that
there lies adequate number of public health, medical and other institutions for
participating in the response effects (Weaver et al., 2017). The safety of the patient
therefore serves as the bridge and the link between the medical liability and the health
policy.
3. Impact of liability on health law and policy during public health emergency
Liability and the impact of liability plays a very big role towards the law and the
policies of health regarding the human rights towards the health and health care. The
right to health as per the Universal declaration of the human rights is one of the biggest
impact of liability in case of public health emergencies (Fleetwood, 2017). This is
because each and every patient who had been the victim of public health issues has the
rights towards the health laws and the policies concerning the highest attainable standards
of the mental and the physical health including proper access to medical services, food,
decent living and health care treatments from efficient health professionals at zero to
nominal cost range from the government. The health laws and the policies have been
developed for addressing liability of each and everyone since they have the right towards
proper health care and facilities from the governmental agencies including financial
publicly and equitably.

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References
Alirol, E., Kuesel, A. C., Guraiib, M. M., de la Fuente-Núñez, V., Saxena, A., & Gomes, M. F.
(2017). Ethics review of studies during public health emergencies-the experience of the
WHO ethics review committee during the Ebola virus disease epidemic. BMC medical
ethics, 18(1), 43.
Fleetwood, J. (2017). Public health, ethics, and autonomous vehicles. American journal of public
health, 107(4), 532-537.
Gostin, L. O., & Wiley, L. F. (2016). Public health law: power, duty, restraint. Univ of
California Press.
Weaver, S. J., Marsteller, J. A., Wu, A. W., Ismail, M. N. M., & Pronovost, P. J. (2017). Patient
Safety Culture and Medical Liability—Recommendations for Measurement, Analysis,
and Interpretation: A Commentary. Advances in Patient Safety and Medical Liability, 57.