Analysis of Ethical and Legal Conflicts in Healthcare
Over the last few decades, medical practitioners have been in a dilemma when it comes to making choices between right and wrong in their professions. The medics face significant threats related to the safety of their patients. Also, the medics’ ethical responsibilities have been found, in most cases, to conflict with the legal systems (Kadivar et al., 2017). The practitioners find it challenging when it comes to decisions based on ethical, cultural, and legal issues of their patients. To solve these conflicts, Institute of Medicine released a report in 1999 to start a global change of healthcare in the United States and the world to create a safe and a healthy and safe system (Kadivar et al., 2017). This article seeks to identify and understand the ethical and legal conflicts that arise in the medical field, their scopes and depth of treatments as well as tier applications to the real world therapeutic environment.
To begin with, Kadivar et al. (2017) revealed 1 out of 300 patients are at risk of experiencing accidents while undergoing health care services. At the same time, 1 in 100000 patients faces the threat of aviation accidents. The inevitable accidents have prompted 140 countries around the world, to come up with ideas and solutions to improve the safety plans and the health systems of the patients. In another study conducted by Sari, Baysal, Celik, and Eser (2018), the facts showed a 48.38% performance of students paying attention to ethical dilemmas, but they were affected by the environmental factors. With this in mind, it means that when the students get to the field, they are likely to be influenced by the environmental factors which will impact their decisions and concentrations while performing their duties.
For instance, most of the accident cases reported arises from injuries caused by falling and errors in the medications. Many mistakes and accidents occur due to the medics’ carelessness — falling accounts for only 21% of the total errors recorded. However, out of the 21% falling accidents reported, about 4% of the cases are fatal. In a single year, according to the report released by the neonatal falling statistics done in the United States of America, 1.6 to 4.4 out of 10000 birth recorded falling accidents caused deaths. The estimate ranges from 600 to 1600 per year. More often, the deaths happen as a result of issues with the processes and systems involved in the medical arena (Jameton, 2017). Further, poor communications, organizational ambiguity, and complexities are other reasons for falling accidents.
Consequently, most of the cases occur from conflict of interests regarding the ethical and legal issues of the patients. By the reports, the legal and ethical conflicts arise from the failure to pay attention to the safety standards and guidelines of the patients as stipulated by the nursing codes of ethics and legal affairs. While ethical conflict relates to one’s actions or decisions in determining wrong and right towards other people, the legal dispute relates to doing wrong towards another person, society, or property (Chiumento, Khan, Rahman, & Frith, 2016).
In the case of healthcare systems, most of the accidents happen due to legal conflicts. Some causes of the legal issues entail below. First, the criminal law which has been the primary source of the accidents in the recent years happens in either of the following; practicing health care in the hospitals without a license (Gross & Volmer, 2016). Practicing without a license means that the medics are not well equipped and certified to carry out the medical activities. Another example is unlawful possession of illegal drugs or administering the medications to the patients. In terms of ethical conflicts, common mistakes like negligence by medical practitioners are the main reasons for the accidents in the health care systems.
Secondly, the pre-clinical study area incorporates an essential lesson for the study. Aforementioned causes the threat of Alzheimer’s Disease, which is one of the burdens of considerable significance to the healthcare system. According to Molinuevo et al. (2016), the projection shows that in the year 2030, a total of 76 million people will contact the disease. Preclinical involves the admission of drugs into the animals for testing to determine their effects on them before they transfer to human beings. The clinics face ethical challenges in conducting trials while justifying the actions.
One of the emerging questions from the public is whether the inclusion of the participants has surpassed therapeutic window optimally for the intervention strategies. In 1984, NINDS-ADRDA reported the criteria for the diagnostics for the disease (Molinuevo et al., 2016). Thirty years later, the community had been prompted to redefine Alzheimer’s Disease as the pathological continuum. Guidelines have been developed to analyze the risks involved in developing the disease. In the report released by NINDS-ADRDA, which examined the ethical and legal conflicts arising from the three stages of the study; mild cognitive impairment which defines the memory impairment and the pathophysiological biomarkers abnormally, preclinical which includes abnormal biomarkers and the cognitive impairment and lastly dementia which is the irregular and functional impairment (Kruijtbosch et al., 2018).
Urgent ethical and legal challenges arise during the conduction of the preclinical trials with the AD disease. For instance, the first challenge occurs when there is a need to disclose the information to another person. The reports can include biomarkers or genetic results. While this can be considered as the rights of the patients to know their status, it is against the code of ethics of the medical practice to relieve the confidential results to a patient unless under certain conditions (Chiumento, Khan, Rahman, & Frith, 2016). Another information can include the need to know the risks risk benefits of the participants arising from the insurance policies.
The main ethical and legal challenges, in the departments, can be addressed in the following situations; First, social problems occur from the social injustices. An example is an injustice done in the distribution of resources, wealth, privileges, and opportunities. People who have dementia suffer insufficient support and treatment. These shortages may prompt the medics to disclose to the patients the effects of the disease. According to constitutional law, it is against a person’s rights to hold back information (Sari, Baysal, Celik, & Eser, 2018). At the same time, the challenge arises from the need to relay the information about a disease to the patient even if it will harm.
Lastly, the diminishing relationship between the pharmacists and their patients is of great concern to the public. There rising dilemma between the pharmacist’s health professionals’ decisions and patients’ needs have brought about problems regarding the legal representations, regulators, and the health insurance companies (Molinuevo et al., 2016). The moral dilemmas have been diverse and have led to the troubled relationships between the physicians and the patients and the ability to deliver care appropriately.
While it is the responsibility of the pharmacists to ensure the proper delivery of the medicines according to the needs of the patients, pharmacists have faced with significant challenges related to the regulations, financial pressures, increased competitions. They are required to bring about the safe health of the patients amid these challenges. With the increasing demand for the medicines and the rise in chronic illnesses, they face moral dilemmas. The dilemmas are seen to arise from professionalism, personal interest s conflicts, as well as different involvement with different societies and institutions.
A study conducted by Jameton (2017) that ask the pharmacists to recall the dilemmas they faced in their careers shows that most of the pharmacists reminding that most of their decisions were of substantial legal implications. An example of the moral and the legal conflict arise when a patient comes without the prescription, believes that they know their diseases and that they need the recommended drugs. Legally, it is against the law to sell someone drugs without the prescription. However, it may be ethically right to sell them the drugs for you moth be saving their lives (Jameton, 2017). The dilemma instilled by the pharmacists when it comes to saving lives, and minding their well-being or following the law is put at risk. Sometimes when the patients’ lives come into play, it is recommended that the best interest of the patient and his or her health is paramount.
According to the public health policy, health insurance organizations are found to undermine pharmacist decisions making when it comes to professionalism. In most cases, the insurance companies instruct the pharmacists to exchange the drugs with the cheaper one. The relationship between the pharmacist and the patients are undermined (Chiumento, Khan, Rahman, & Frith, 2016). Regaining trusts of the patients can solve the problem by giving them what will help improve their health. It is the responsibility of the pharmacist to reject the pleas from the insurance companies and mind the health of the patients first. Not only would they gain the trust of the patients but also uphold their health.
In conclusion, the main agenda of the study aimed to analyze the different issues relating to moral and legal law. More often, medics and healthcare workers find themselves in conflicting sides when it comes to what is right or wrong. Being a medical practitioner sometimes calls for doing what is believed to be correct, as long as it is in the good of the patients and the medic, regardless of the constitutional law. The challenges faced in the ethical and the legal face arises while determining the disclosure of the biomarkers and other information to the patients. Additionally, the rise of medical negligence among the medics have seen an uproar in many sectors of the government and society. Taking lawsuits can help reduce these challenges. It should be the top priority of the patients to be kept safe and healthy.
References:
Chiumento, A., Khan, M. N., Rahman, A., & Frith, L. (2016). Managing Ethical Challenges to Mental Health Research in Post-Conflict Settings. Developing world bioethics, 16(1), 15– 28. doi:10.1111/dewb.12076
Kadivar, M., Manookian, A., Asghari, F., Niknafs, N., Okazi, A., & Zarvani, A. (2017). Ethical and legal aspects of patient’s safety: a clinical case report. Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine, 10.
Kruijtbosch, M., Göttgens-Jansen, W., Floor-Schreudering, A., van Leeuwen, E., Bouvy, M. L., & Lee, G. (2018). Moral dilemmas of community pharmacists: a narrative study. International journal of clinical pharmacy, 40(1), 74–83. doi:10.1007/s11096-017-0561-0
Molinuevo, J. L., Cami, J., Carné, X., Carrillo, M. C., Georges, J., Isaac, M. B., … Karlawish, J. (2016). Ethical challenges in preclinical Alzheimer’s disease observational studies and trials: Results of the Barcelona summit. Alzheimer’s & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, 12(5), (Molinuevo, et al., 2016)614–622. doi:10.1016/j.jalz.2016.01.009
Sari, D., Baysal, E., Celik, G. G., & Eser, I. (2018). Ethical Decision Making Levels of Nursing Students. Pakistan journal of medical sciences, 34(3), 724–729. doi:10.12669/pjms.343.14922
Jameton, A. (2017). What moral distress in nursing history could suggest about the future of (Chiumento, Khan, Rahman, & Frith, 2016)health care. AMA journal of ethics, 19(6), 617-628.
Gross, M., & Volmer, D. (2016). Restrictions to Pharmacy Ownership and Vertical Integration in Estonia-Perception of Different Stakeholders. Pharmacy (Basel, Switzerland), 4(2), 18. doi:10.3390/pharmacy4020018