Co-existence in Health Care Organizations - Essay Example

Co-existence in health care organization Introduction Healthcare involves diagnosing, treating and preventing illnesses, diseases, mental and physical impairments in humans. Some of the persons placed to provide health care services are practitioners in nursing, dentistry, pharmacy, optometry and other legally operating care providers. A health care organization is an institution whereby the health practitioners offer primary health care, secondary and tertiary health care to patients. To ensure that the health care organizations are operating to the required standards, respective governments and professional bodies have enacted laws that keep these organizations in check (Lebeer, 2002). Since health care organizations deal with humanity, ethics play a huge role in running them as they try to resolve questions that help deal with and make people understand while upholding human morality concepts like virtues, wrong and right, evil and good, crime and justice. Different fields have their own set of ethical codes that govern professionals in that particular field. Several ethics namely business ethics, clinical ethics and law have been applied on hospitals (an example of a health organization) but there has been a debate on whether they can co-exist. This paper will try to prove if the three can co-exist in a hospital ensuring that its smooth operation and rights of patients and everyone working in a hospital are upheld. Clinical ethics were established to ensure that patients are given maximum care, are protected against health practitioners’ incompetence and bad decisions (Lebeer, 2002). They also protect the rights of the practitioners from being falsely targeted. Health practitioners are supposed to follow the set rules and regulations while performing their duties. The ethics for example state that the relationship a doctor and a patient ought to keep should be entirely professional. A doctor is also not supposed to tell anyone unless directed by the patient to share with anyone the medical condition of a patient. While performing a dangerous operation on a patient, a surgeon should not be worried about getting negative results so along as they follow the standard procedure. Clinical ethics ensure that negligence of the health practitioners is punished. This may be applied when a doctor wrongly prescribes wrong medication or dosage to a patient worsening his or her condition after taking the wrong prescription. There have been several cases where patients succumbing after taking such wrong prescription (Uysal, et al 2012). The clinical ethical codes state that the doctor is liable for this mistake and several punishments are stated in the codes. The medical board might take away the doctor’s practicing license or suspend him or her from operating for a number of years. Law and clinical ethics co exist in such incidents as the ethical codes suggest the prosecution of such practitioners. A doctor who wrongly prescribes the wrong medication to a patient leading to his or her death is liable for prosecution in a court of law. The affected family may sue for damages or the punishment by law of the doctor (Uysal,& Perdue 2012). This happens where they feel that the clinical ethics code have not thoroughly punished the doctor. Laws in a hospital deal with every person connected to it, that is, the staff, practitioners and patients. Unlike ethics, which gives the directives on how things should be conducted in a hospital, laws give the legal implications of not following the required procedures by everyone. Ethics mainly deal with the health practitioners creating a room where the patients who go against the codes to go unpunished. Under law, patients who for example dupe medical practitioners are liable for prosecution under law. In case, a patient knowingly lies and accuses a doctor to have made a mistake while treating him or her is liable for punishment under law. Ethical codes of conducts do not suggest the possible punishments the patient should be given in the event investigations prove that he or she was lying (Uysal,& Perdue 2012). Law comes into use on such an occasion as it states that the patient is liable for prosecution for lying. The patient can be sentenced to some years behind bars in order to discourage other patients trying to pull similar tricks. Business ethics also apply on the hospital environment, as there are business transactions that take place in the hospital. Private hospitals charge patients consultation fees, treatment fees, admission fee and drug fees (Weber, 2001). To protect exploitation of patients, business ethics are important as they regulate these charges. It is a crime to charge exorbitant fees for the provision of any service in a hospital. Law and such business ethics co exist, as there is the provision of charging a hospital that exploits its patients in such ways. Selling fake or un authorized drugs in a hospital is against both the law and business ethics. According to the law, this is a crime, which leads to charges being levied on the guilty persons. The law implements the business ethics recommendation in punishing a medical practitioner involved in the act. The business and clinic ethics co-exists in such a case as they both suggest punishments to the concerned person, which is executed by the law (Weber, 2001). Just like other institutions, hospitals are involved in tendering processes when trying to buy goods or services. The process needs to be transparent and an honest one to help deal with corruption and money misuse. Clinic ethics do not suggest the punishments or actions that ought to be taken on a medical practitioner involved in such a scheme. This is because issues to do with the expenditure of money or tendering process are not covered in the clinic ethics as they do not fall in that line of profession (Ammaker & Tomlinson 2011). Business ethics and laws are applied in solving such a case since the punishments are not stipulated in the clinical ethics. The corrupt medical practitioner involved in the money mis-appropriation or corruption can be jailed for some years (Weber, 2001). Once a medical practitioner has a criminal record, he or she misses some privileges and benefits his or her colleagues’ get. One likely result of such charges is that he or she is disqualified from becoming promoted. Conclusion Basing the arguments on the paper, clinical ethics, business ethics and the law can easily co exist in a health organization such a hospital. They ascertain that everything is done according to the morally accepted methods. Clinical ethics make are there to ensure that the medical practitioners apply correctly whatever they have learned while dealing with patients. They ensure that patients get quality treatment and care while being attended to by a health practitioner. Like other institutions, business takes place in health organizations and the business ethics helps keep in check any irregularities. Clinic and business ethics needs to be in line with the law, thus the law helps protect people from being oppressed, and thus it is correct to conclude that the three can co-exist in a health organization. References Ammaker, D. K., & Tomlinson, S. J. (2011). Health care management and the law: Principles and applications. Clifton Park, NY: Delmar/Cengage Learning. Lebeer, G. (2002). Ethical function in hospital ethics committees. Amsterdam: IOS Press. Uysal, M., & Perdue, R. R. (2012). Handbook of tourism and quality-of-life research: Enhancing the lives of tourists and residents of host communities. Dordrecht [etc.: Springer. Weber, L. J. (2001). Business ethics in healthcare: Beyond compliance. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Read More