Analysis of Legal and Ethical Issues in a Healthcare Case Study

This case study analysis examines a scenario involving a patient's experience with a complementary healthcare service in Australia, focusing on potential breaches of ethical and legal guidelines. The analysis identifies three key areas of concern: misleading advertising practices on social media, the practitioner's failure to disclose the ingredients used in treatments, and the lack of proper certification. The study references the Australian Government Department of Health's regulations regarding advertising, patient autonomy, and quality assurance. It also outlines potential consequences for non-compliance, including warnings, legal actions, and license revocation. The analysis further discusses the patient's recourse through local governmental authorities and healthcare ombudsmen to file complaints and initiate investigations. The case underscores the importance of adherence to ethical and legal standards in healthcare to protect patient rights and ensure quality care.

Running head: CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
LEGAL CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

1CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Answer 1
As per McCormack and McCance (2014), a majority of the healthcare service users in
Australia uses complementary medicine therapy over the conventional healthcare
treatments and as per the survey conducted by the Nps.org.au (2019), 65% of the
Australians used complementary and alternative nursing therapy for their ailments. As
per the Australian regulation or guidelines for the natural medicines, all the contemporary
healthcare organizations should comply with the ethical, legal and regulatory framework
upon which the healthcare process and its effectiveness depend. Similar to the conventional
medicine process, the natural healthcare therapies also includes ethical principles of
autonomy, justice, non-maleficence and beneficence (Waring et al., 2016). These ethical
frameworks protect the rights of patients or service users in such facilities and specify and
limit the type of resources that could be used in the process. Therefore, it protects the service
users from the healthcare complication that could occur due to the adverse effects of the
contemporary or natural healthcare service. There are several guidelines for the
advertisement, procedure, therapeutic resources and the healthcare process of the
complementary and natural healthcare services in Australia depending on which
organizations are developed. These guidelines are the Australian Regulatory Guidelines for
Advertising Therapeutic Goods or (ARGATG), standard guidelines for healthcare
publications, and the list of complementary medicine that determines the type of medication,
type of service and the type of advertisement such natural therapy related organization could
develop so that ethical and legal guidelines could not be violated (Australian Government
Department of Health, 2019). Further, these guidelines and ethical frameworks limit the
scope of breaching the legislation and further, if any organization breaches, it includes a
provision of strict action that could be taken for the breaching process. Further, there are
several legislations that could be applied in the care process of natural and contemporary

2CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
healthcare service so that holistic care could be provided to such patients. These are the
Customs Act 1901, Industrial Chemicals (Notification and Assessment) Act 1989 and the
National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme, Australian Dangerous
Goods Code, Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Code Act 1994 and others that helps to
reduce the harmful chemicals or substances usage of which could eliminate the risk of
adverse conditions of patient’s health (Australian Government Department of Health, 2019).
Therefore, through the legal guidelines of the Australian contemporary medication rules and
legislation, it helps to reduce the risk related to patients health, reduces the chance of ethical
and legal violation. Further, the healthcare professionals of such healthcare organizations
should also follow the professional code of conduct developed by the Australian government
so that they could provide the patients with healthcare by developing effective
communication and favorable behavior (Australian Government Department of Health,
2019).
Answer 2
In this case study, it was seen that the patient found about the complementary
healthcare service and the type of services they provide on Facebook and after understanding
all the services and knowing about their certification, she visited the healthcare facility for
her chronic back pain problem. It should be mentioned that after reading the Facebook post,
she also looked for the website of the natural healthcare clinic and found the list of services
and the type of resources they use for the treatment, with the type of expert, their experience
certification and price of the service. However, upon reaching the center, she found the clinic
in a residential apartment and with minimal privacy (Australian Government Department of
Health, 2019). Further, the practitioner did not mention the “secret ingredient” they use for
back pain remedies and also lacked the Australian certification for such contemporary
medication practices. Therefore, from this above-mentioned scenario, three aspects of ethical

3CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
and legal breaching could be identified. As per the Australian government department of
health (2019), while advertising about such processes over social media or print media, the
organizers should properly mention the type of service, the list of service ingredients, the
kind of activities they conduct and after this they should seek approval from the healthcare
department of Australian government (Australian Government Department of Health, 2019).
However, in this case, scenario, no such approval was provided in the advertisement and
upon observing the organization closely, the client was able to understand that the
practitioner does not have any Australian certification for such process. Hence, this affected
the three aspects of healthcare which are: social responsibility, misleads the consumer and the
process lacked the quality assurance and hence, lacked trustworthiness (Australian
Government Department of Health, 2019). The second breaching that was observed in the
case was related to the type of substance the organization was used for the treatment of the
clients as upon asking about the resource that they use for the chronic pain condition, the
practitioner mentioned that it is a secret agent that would help to reduce the clients back pain
effectively. Hence, by keeping the client uninformed, the facility of natural healthcare
process breached the ethical guidelines of the nursing or care process related to patient
autonomy (Australian Government Department of Health, 2019). Further, the healthcare
facilities that conduct such healthcare process should be aware of the type of social media
advertisements they could publish as the Australia healthcare department has provided a
guideline for social media publication. However, the facebook advertisement of the “Heal U
NatureallyClinik” does not include all the information, that should be provided to the service
users so that they could decide upon approaching the healthcare organization for the
treatment or not. Therefore, these are the three type of breaching of ethical and legal
guidelines and principles that could be identified form the case study provided (Australian
Government Department of Health, 2019).

4CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Answer 3
There are several complications that could arise due to the breaching of the legal and
ethical aspects of the complementary medication in Australia. This case study discusses three
ethical and legal breaches due to which the client suffered from mental and physical trauma
(Waring et al., 2016). As per the Australian ministry of healthcare, if any contemporary
healthcare organization breaches the advertisement related laws and guidelines, the
government first provides the organization with a warning later, substantiation notice (under
the law S.42DR) and provides a direction to make the process ethically and legally
compliance (under the law S.42DV) and in adverse conditions, the government charges the
owners of the contemporary healthcare service with criminal prosecution under Section
42DL, 42DM, and 42DW. Further, in adverse condition, the government could also cease the
license of such organization (Australian Government Department of Health, 2019). Further, it
was also mentioned in the Australian criminal act 1995 that if any organization advertises or
provides service that could increase the risk factors for the people associated with it, then it
could affect the service users by increasing their health complication, then clinical audits and
lawsuits are conducted to assess the organization and eventually cease its service
(McCormack& McCance, 2016).
Answer 4
In such circumstances, the patient could file a complaint at the local governmental
authority as it would help to initiate a legal investigation about the organization, the
practitioners and authentication of the type of services that the organization conducts.
Further, as per the Australian health ministry, there are local healthcare ombudsmen in every
state of Australia, in which the healthcare related complaints of service users are registered
(Australian Government Department of Health, 2019). Hence, the client in this case study
should file a complaint in this ombudsmen so that depending on the complaint an

5CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
investigation could be resumed and proper action on the complementary healthcare
organization could be taken. Besides this, it should be mentioned that every state in Australia
is inclusive of a medical act, which ensures all the contemporary, conventional and natural
healthcare processes and its effectiveness. Therefore, this would be treated in this process.

6CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
References
Australian Government Department of Health (2019). Advertising: Advertising Code and
guidance. Retrieved from: https://www.tga.gov.au/advertising-advertising-code-and-
guidance
Australian Government Department of Health (2019).Australian regulatory guidelines for
complementary medicines Retrieved from:
https://www.tga.gov.au/sites/default/files/australian-regulatory-guidelines-
complementary-medicines-argcm-v8.0.pdf
Australian Government Department of Health (2019). Complementary medicines. Retrieved
from: https://www.tga.gov.au/complementary-medicines
Australian Government Department of Health (2019). Regulation of complementary
medicines in Australia. Retrieved from: https://www.tga.gov.au/regulation-
complementary-medicines-australia
McCormack, B., & McCance, T. (Eds.). (2016). Person-centred practice in nursing and
health care: theory and practice. John Wiley & Sons.
Nps.org.au (2019). Complementary medicines. Retrieved from:
https://www.nps.org.au/australian-prescriber/articles/complementary-medicines
Waring, J., Allen, D., Braithwaite, J., & Sandall, J. (2016). Healthcare quality and safety: a
review of policy, practice and research. Sociology of Health & Illness, 38(2), 198-215.