Ethical Dilemmas in Healthcare: Patient Rights and Moral Obligations

This essay delves into the complexities of medical ethics, focusing on patient rights and informed consent within a healthcare context. It analyzes a case study where a patient's rights intersect with the moral obligations towards a growing fetus. The discussion highlights the importance of respecting patient autonomy, ensuring effective communication, and navigating ethical dilemmas arising from diverse patient values. The essay also addresses potential conflicts between the personal values of medical professionals and the cultural beliefs of patients, emphasizing the need for cultural sensitivity and adherence to regulations protecting patient rights. The analysis underscores the significance of informed decision-making, the potential for ethical and legal implications when patient rights are disregarded, and the role of healthcare providers in promoting positive patient outcomes while respecting individual values. Desklib provides a platform for students to access similar solved assignments and study resources.

Running head: MEDICAL ETHICS
Medical ethics
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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According to the code of health and Disability Services Consumers' Rights the care
provider must inform the consumers about their rights and enable them to exercise. The care
providers must ensure the patients right to be treated with respect, right to freedom from
discrimination, maintain their right to dignity and independence, and right to effective
communication. Before making any decision the medical professionals must take informed
consent from the care users and ensure making informed choice unless the consumer is not
competent. Disrespecting patient rights has its own ethical and legal implications. On the other
hand, growing fetus has moral obligations due to potentiality (Ross et al., 2016). According to
Bustreo et al. (2013) right of fetus is subordinated to the rights of mother. The medical
professionals are also obliged to care for fetus in respect to theory of non-maleficence and
beneficence (Ajah et al., 2017). The rights in this case study is also associated with the right to
liberty or birth control, right to privacy and makes reproductive choices, which are also
recognised in the international human rights documents. Further, the World health organisation
also advocates the reproductive rights while emphasising in women rights (Bustreo et al., 2013).
The learning drawn from the case study and alternating view point is that right to inform decision
making would have positive consequences and better patient outcomes. It will reduce the risk of
ethical and legal implications as concluded from the alternate viewpoints. Educating the patient
on the consequences of the X-ray testing on fetus will help resolve the ethical dilemma (Butts,
2012). If further, the patient demonstrates the non-competence in making decision, and is
reasonable, then the medical professionals may proceed with the protocols that prohibit the use
of radiography on expectant women.
On reflecting on the issue there are other cases where such dilemma occurs. It is related
to value conflicts created by the diverse values of the patients due to multicultural background.

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The diverse set of values of the patients may not align with the personal values of the medical
professionals. Not respecting the patients values may leads to breach of right to autonomy. For
instance, the Muslim patients may deny having medications to avoid animal protein. Similarly,
the personal value of the medical professional may be to avoid gender discrimination. However,
there are cultures that do not value equal access to reproductive health care for women. The
patient may undergo moral distress, and feel having lost the identity. Communication barrier due
to diverse cultural values may lead to poor life supporting decisions. The medical professionals
may develop poor relationship with the patients due to conflicting values. It may hamper the
access to the health care and lead to health disparity (Giger, 2016). The diverse values prevent
the accommodation of needs of specific population and provision of high quality care. Not
understanding the diverse values of the patients, may lead to discrimination which is against the
breach of the Health and Disability Commissioner Regulations 1996 (Beauchamp, 2016).

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References
Ajah, L. O., Nwali, S. A., Amah, C. C., Nwankwo, T. O., Lawani, L. O., & Ozumba, B. C.
(2017). Attitude of Reproductive Healthcare Providers to Prenatal Diagnosis in a Low Resource
Nigerian Setting. Journal of clinical and diagnostic research: JCDR, 11(2), QC04.
Beauchamp, T. L. (2016). Principlism in Bioethics. In Bioethical Decision Making and
Argumentation (pp. 1-16). Springer, Cham.
Bustreo, F., Hunt, P., & World Health Organization. (2013). Women’s and children’s health:
evidence of impact of human rights. World Health Organization.
Butts, J. B. (2012). Reproductive Issues and Nursing Ethics. Nursing Ethics, 101.
Giger, J. N. (2016). Transcultural Nursing-E-Book: Assessment and Intervention. Elsevier
Health Sciences.
Ross, L., GutiŽrrez, E., Gerber, M., & Silliman, J. (2016). Undivided rights: Women of color
organizing for reproductive justice. Haymarket Books.

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