Patient Rights Violation in Healthcare: A Case Study

This case study discusses the violation of patient rights in healthcare, including the right to healthcare and confidentiality. Legal and ethical issues are discussed, and recommendations are made based on the ethical principle of justice.

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Patient right violated in the case
The patient rights violated, in this case, are “The right to healthcare” and
“Confidentiality”. Jim being that patient was ill-treated in the present case study at
Saints Hospital emergency department nurse, doctor and receptionist (his ex-wife
Tammy). According to Jameson & Longo (2015) studies, federal healthcare laws
provide the right to healthcare to each and every individual irrespective of social
structure, inequalities, and socioeconomic status, personal and political norms.
Further, Peabody (2015) mentioned about patients right of confidentiality describing
that it is the duty of healthcare professionals to protect the privacy of patient regarding
information gathered about every patient.
In the present case of Jim, there was a violation of his ‘right to healthcare’ by
the nurse and doctor based on fake information provided by his Ex-wife Tammy. Jim
was not treated properly for his mentioned symptoms of chest pain and aching arm
further declaring depression and anxiety as detected health issues without any specific
diagnostic test and psychiatric history. The attending nurse and doctor were also rude
having inappropriate behaviour towards Jim.
Further, the hospital receptionist Tammy (Jim’s ex-wife) and emergency
department nurse violated another patient’s right that is’ right to confidentiality’. The
ER attending nurse told Jim that ‘she is already aware of Jim’s mental health issues’.
However, Jim was admitted for his physical health issues (chest pain and aching arm).
Jim was having no medical history of mental health issues neither any concern
regarding similar. This clearly indicates a loophole created by professionals in
maintaining patient’s confidentiality in this case.
As a result of this violation of patient’s rights, the case study patient Jim was
only affected because he suffered a heart attack at his home the next morning after his
medical session at Saint Hospital. The doctor instead of paying attention to Jim’s
heart disease sign’s concentrated more towards verbal information about Jim being a
mental health patient. Doctor instead of admitted him for observation or medical
diagnosis declared his situations as a ‘panic attack’ occurring due to anxiety.
This violation of patient’s right at Saint Hospital occurred due to an error in
hospital’s rules and regulations governing duty of care, confidentiality, privacy and
efficacy of healthcare services. There is a clear indication of negligence,
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misbehaviour and malpractice that has occurred with Jim at the Saint Hospital case
setting.
Legal and ethical issues in this case
The legal issues that have resulted in the present case situation are
Professional wrongdoing, harnessing professional boundaries and not protecting data
privacy. According to understanding, any kind of activity performed by the health
professional that causes myriad concern to patient comes under professional
wrongdoing legal issue (Holland, 2015). In the present case, Jim’s attending doctor
and nurse did a professional wrongdoing offense by not attending patient seriously
that resulted in the heart attack. Further, these professionals along with the hospital
receptionist (Jim’s ex-wife) Tammy created two more legal issues by harnessing
professional boundaries and not protecting data privacy. These professional used
patient personal situation and private information the appropriate manner for handling
patient’s physical health that required proper attention. According to Marckmann,
Schmidt, Sofaer & Strech (2015) studies, healthcare professionals should not disclose
patient information even to another professional in case not informed to the patient as
per the data privacy act. Further, they should provide care irrespective of any social or
personal situations harnessing the patient’s access to care.
The ethical issues noticed, in this case, are negligence and non-maleficence.
The ethical issue of negligence involves any kind of neglect, ignorance or
carelessness errors created by healthcare professionals while performing their duty of
care. These errors can be intentional or unintentional that is involved in ethical
negligence by professionals (Kuhse, 2015). In Jim’s case, ER nurse and doctor
performed clear and intentional negligence towards him by not paying attention
towards his physical health symptoms of health disease. Further, Non-maleficence
that means, “doing no harm” to the patient in medical practice was also noted in this
case. The healthcare professionals did mental and physical harm to Jim by not
attending him carefully and inappropriate behaviour that resulted in a heart attack
situation. Further, the information about diagnosis test details is missing in this case
information that would have helped more appropriately to analyse the legal and
ethical issues in this case.
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Applicable ethical principle and recommendations
As a healthcare administrator getting into the details of this case it would be
most appropriate to implement the ethical principle of ‘Justice’ in this case to get
proper justice for Jim as well as to ensure that no such incidence occurs again in Saint
Hospital. According to Hoffman (2015) studies, Justice ethical principle allows the
decision maker to make a decision for appropriate actions required in any situation.
Justice ethical principle allows ethically correct resolution of any incidence based on
rights, virtues, utilitarianism and deontology. In the present case, as harm has been
done with the patient, the ethical principle of justice shall help the authorities to
correct the situation as well as ensure that any such incidence does not occur again in
their hospital. The most appropriate recommendations that can be implemented by the
organisation for this case study situations based on ethical and legal theory are: -
 Take legal action against the professionals involved in non-maleficence and
negligence.
 To offer proper compensation and apology for the loss of Jim (House, 2014).
The inappropriate loss to the patient was done in this case, therefore, the
justice principle is applicable to minimise the pain of that loss as well as ensure that
any such incidence is not repeated in healthcare scenario (Hall, Orentlicher, Bobinski,
Bagley & Cohen, 2018). Therefore, these two recommendations would work in the
most appropriate manner. The offered compensation shall help to minimise the
financial burden of losses and apology shall work to minimise the emotional stress
that occurred with Jim during the whole incidence. Further, proper action against the
involved stakeholders would work to avoid the reoccurrence of such negligence and
non-maleficence with any other patient in future. According to Tarzian, Wocial, &
ASBH (2015) studies, the principle of Justice is applicable in every decision-making
situation that must have occurred either before or after the wrongdoing. This principle
helps to resolve a situation working to convert incorrect to correct within ethical and
legal restrictions.
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References
Books
Hall, M. A., Orentlicher, D., Bobinski, M. A., Bagley, N., & Cohen, I. G.
(2018). Health care law and ethics. Wolters Kluwer Law & Business.
Holland, S. (2015). Public health ethics. John Wiley & Sons.
House, F. (2014). Freedom in the world 2014: The annual survey of political rights
and civil liberties. Rowman & Littlefield.
Kuhse, H. (2015). Bioethics: an anthology (Vol. 40). John Wiley & Sons.
Journals
Hoffman, S. (2015). Citizen science: the law and ethics of public access to medical
big data. Berkeley Tech. LJ, 30, 1741.
Jameson, J. L., & Longo, D. L. (2015). Precision medicine—personalized,
problematic, and promising. Obstetrical & Gynecological Survey, 70(10), 612-614.
Marckmann, G., Schmidt, H., Sofaer, N., & Strech, D. (2015). Putting public health
ethics into practice: a systematic framework. Frontiers in public health, 3, 23.
Peabody, F. W. (2015). The care of the patient. Jama, 313(18), 1868-1868.
Tarzian, A. J., Wocial, L. D., & ASBH Clinical Ethics Consultation Affairs
Committee. (2015). A code of ethics for health care ethics consultants: Journey to
the present and implications for the field. The American Journal of
Bioethics, 15(5), 38-51.
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