Negligence - Duty to Provide Timely Care - Essay Example

"Negligence - Duty to Provide Timely Care" is a great example of a paper on medical ethics. Failure to provide timely care, negligence, and errors in medical practice are among the leading causes of death and injury. An example is the case of Hastings v. Baton Rouge Hospital. The case involved malpractice as conducted by the accused, Dr. Gerdes, Dr. McCool, and the emergency department at the hospital. The case related to negligence in the operation of a 19-year-old admitted at the hospital’s emergency section (Pozgar, 2011).

The case meets the legal requirements for negligence. Negligence is the omission or commission of action(s), which, otherwise should not be done. The omission of an act also includes the late administration of health care. Failure to provide timely care to a patient may result in their injury from which the caregiver should protect the victim. In ascertain negligence, the case involved should exhibit a failure to adhere to the duty to care and breach of duty by caregivers as emphasized by Kohn, Corrigan, and Donaldson (2000). Additionally, the plaintiff should show that the resulting injury causative is the caregivers’ malpractices. The Hastings v. Baton Rouge Hospital case meets all the requirements for negligence. The chain of events leading to the Hastings’ son's death was due to failure to adhere to professional requirements before the transfer of a patient.

In the case of Hasting v. Baton Rouge Hospital, the caregivers fail to address an emergency, which leads to the patient’s death. This case exhibits ordinary negligence due to the failure of Dr. McCool and Dr. Gedes to act as per the circumstances of the situation. The two caregivers failed to stick to the duty to care and with Dr. McCool breaching his duty. The malpractices resulted in the death of the Hasting’s son. Dr. Gedes and Dr. McCool exhibited nonfeasance negligence. Dr. McCool failed to respond to his duty call despite the explanation of the circumstances of the situation. Dr. Gedes should have sought possible alternatives to stabilize the patient’s condition before the transfer as per health care providers' requirement of duty to care.

According to Pozgar (2009), the hospital involved had a regulation that the condition of a patient ought to be considered before transfer. The transfer of Hasting’s son, who ought to have received extensive care before efforts to transfer him commenced, did not adhere to consideration of the patient’s condition. The failure to stabilize the patient caused him to bleed to death. According to Pozgar (2009), this was a violation of the non-maleficence ethic, which caregivers ought to observe. Dr. McCool ought to have observed compliance with the duty call as a way of helping prevent any possible harm. Dr. Gedes ought to have resolved to a possible way of stabilizing the patient before finding another potential surgeon.

The two doctors by their very acts do not exhibit beneficence, which ought to be their main reason for their work. These two doctors’ actions do not show kindness to their patients. Kelly, a nurse in the hospital, is the only caregiver who exhibits the ethical value of beneficence. The hospital’s administrator ought to streamline its contract terms as a way of checking for the performance of its doctors (Pozgar, 2010). The contract's terms and conditions review will aid in checking the doctor’s response to a duty call.

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