Legal and Ethical Issues In Healthcare

Question: Discuss about the Legal and Ethical Issues In Healthcare. Answer: Introduction Undoubtedly, the law and ethics of practice play a crucial part in the decision-making ability of a person, be it a patient or a healthcare practitioner. Consequently, individuals possess rights to make decisions that affect their health. However, competencies or lack of the capacity to make decisions may serve as a barring factor, and someone can be considered unfit to make his or her decisions. This paper encompasses the identification and the discussion of the legal as well as the ethical issues presented in the case study. It discusses options that are available to ensure that treatment is provided when a patient is not in a better position to make decisions. Legal Issues It is evident that the management of healthcare always presents complex situations especially when the capability of a person to be treated to engage in decision making is called into question (Pozgar, 2016). Edwards case is different because he had refused to be treated for a viral infection before becoming unconscious. As such, the paramedics were legally forced to institute treatment since it was an emergency situation and the requests to initiate psychiatric consultation for purposes of assessing Edwards capacity could not be performed when he was in a diabetic coma. The actions of the paramedics were guided by the legal authority that states that the healthcare professionals ought to come up with a feeling that a patient or client who rejects a particular type of recommended treatments is in a way incompetent until the doctors or a court proves otherwise (Forester-Miller Davis, 1995). Consequently, it is not the refusal to treatment that has the ability to determine a patient's capacity to decide, but the right to self-determination that matters in treatment (Ulrich, 2001). However, the paramedics had to do what was legally acceptable to save Edwards life, and as a result invoked the principle of implied consent in emergent situations such as his by surrogating (Ashcroft, 2007). The elements of this consent exist such as the nature of a medical procedure or decision. It is s primary goal of any healthcare center to ensure that patients are given an opportunity during the consultation periods to make informed choices before the start of treatment. This element requires that analysis is done on the nature of the decision involved in a surgical operation. It is a requirement to check if patient's decision to decline treatment before the occurrence of an emergent situation is valid or not. The other element of this consent revolves around the search for a reasonable alternative that may lead to the invocation of applied consent to be the only proposed intervention. As such, an aspect that entails the comprehension of relevant risks, and uncertainties as well as benefits that may lead to the betterment of patient in critical condition. Although the case study of Edwards condition brings about mixed reactions, it is evident that the element understanding together with acceptance of an intervention of treatment could not be relied on after discovering that he showed no signs of recovering from fatal brain injury. For the case of implied consent, the paramedics who were responsible for Edwards care are obligated to make a decision on how best the commencement of the treatment could be done using the legal authority that employs the principle of best interests. The National Health Act permits medical treatment for an emergency situation to foster the prevention of death or causing permanent damage to the health of the client (Gillon, 2003). Health care practitioners are not allowed to provide treatment to a patient before the informed consent is first obtained because the act has legal consequences that may impact the careers of physicians (Satyanarayana, 2008). The legal consequences that flow when a practitioner breaches the policy of informed consent involve being sued upon the realization that no informed consent was obtained before the start of treatment. A health care practitioner is usually sued for medical battery, which is considered as a purely legal issue that is associated closely with the application of effective treatment for someone who is unwilling. A medical battery is usual referred to offensive touching when no consent or permission has been sought. The other legal consequences that come with the application when no consent was obtained before the start of medical treatment is the suing of a physician for medical malpractice, and this may lead the provider's license to be suspended. Since Edward is unresponsive, the rationale that can be used is that which values the life of a patient. It is usually the work of the medical practitioners to maintain confidentiality to ensure that no information about the patient leaks to other people (Beauchamp Childress, 2001). Since situations may turn out to be critical at times and the situation on the ground is life-threatening, treatment has to be done with immediate effect to ensure the patient is treated to stabilize his or her conditions (Limerick, 2007). As such, quick actions must be done to make sure that the relevant people are contacted in case the situation presents nothing useful to indicate that a patient can recover from a diabetic coma, and in the next minute provide full informed consent. The rationale is to be thoughtful of what should be done as options for the dilemma (Klvemark et al., 2004). In essence, an evaluation of the available alternatives to standing in the place of the first one is the rationale that works in this scenario. Medical practitioners have access to a number of options that can be practically utilized to obtain consent to facilitate Edwards ongoing treatment. Evidently, some circumstances require the listing of the next of keen based on what the state law would recommend. Therefore, health care professionals have an obligation to get to know the people who are intimately related to him and can be relied upon in the decision-making process. As such, there is a specific hierarchy that must be followed to enhance the appropriate decision-making process to obtain consent before the beginning of a medical treatment procedure. For this case, Una can be called upon to assist in giving out informed consent. The effectiveness of the process would be apparent by her willingness or ability to understand the procedures to be undertaken. When she fails to understand the actual processes, Genevieve can come in to help with the matter at hand without interfering with the operation of giving consent for his unresponsive husband. If no surrogate is settled on, health care practitioners might be forced to act using the principle of best interests until the court intervenes to appoint a guardian who will help with informed consent. The legal authority that can be relied upon is that of Potential Surrogates and Priority. This is based on the reason that statutory provisions provide a toolkit that addresses the person with a potential of acting as a proxy for an unresponsive patient such as Edward. It is the ultimate cause of action for the healthcare practitioners to provide a definitive answer in cases where there exist two substitute surrogates or even more who have the potential of providing a consent regarding what should be done to a patient who is unresponsive or lacks the capacity of making decisions (Leo, 2017). The availability of legal issues that can be undertaken in realizing a definitive solution makes the entire process to be successful. As such, the legal options will begin by first designating a hierarchy since it is the only primary strategy that can be incorporated to find consent that wasnt clear due to disagreements between two or more surrogates. This approach will rely on the policy that those who are lower in the hierarchy do not stand a chance in situations like this to overrule a surrogate who is authorized by skipping judicial proceedings. One of the option that can be implemented in circumstances where there are multiple surrogates involves allowing the healthcare providers to depend more on what the majority of the potentially relevant surrogates settled on during the process of obtaining consent before the disputes erupted (Morrison Monagle, 2009). In essence, a definitive answer has to be deprived in a situation like this because judicial interventions assist in resolving the disagreements even in the absence of provided provisions. Medically, the decision to enhance the withdrawal of life-sustaining measures is quite difficult to reach because it may be considered to be culturally repulsive. One of the factors that need to be taken into account is the level of acceptance that has been collectively reached (Elwyn et al., 2012). This depends on the seen benefits of the life-sustaining measures, and the decision must be arrived at by the family and the clinicians (Tilden et al., 2001). This factor is used after noticing the fact that the Edward is undeniably and unquestionably gaining no benefits from the measures of life-sustenance proposedly to be withdrawn. The other factor that can be used to foster the withdrawal of Edward's life-sustaining measures is that which involves a realized stabilized medical condition. This is because if a state of a patient is stable to a level that no further signs of improvements is expected; the decision can be reached at by both the healthcare professionals and the family to wi thdraw the measures (Danis et al., 1991). Ethical Issues Ethical issues in healthcare play a pivotal role in enhancing medical treatment in hospitals. As such, one of the ethical principles that are relevant in this scenario is the principle of autonomy. In particular, this moral principle stands for the proposal or proposition that adults with the ability to make informed decisions possess complete as well as the perfect rights to influence what treatment can be done with their bodies. This is in reference to the declaration on bioethics as well as human rights, and it is a principle that has universal recognition in ethical practice in healthcare. As such, Edwards case relies on this principle since it is his unresponsiveness or the lack of the capacity to make decisions due to the diabetic coma that calls for the invitation of his family to provide informed consent on his behalf legally. It is evident from the case study that Edward had in the previous days refused the treatment of the viral infection, which the ethical principle of aut onomy accepts but now his emergent condition made it hard for him to give his informed consent before treatment. Similarly, the other principle that applies to the facts in this scenario is that of beneficence. This applies in the scenario by promoting healthcare benefits to a patient who is unresponsive or in a diabetic coma. This ethical code disregards all the others and makes the healthcare practitioners act using what they view to be of "best interest." However, a conflict between the above principles can arise when the clinicians decide to perform first aid on a patient in an emergent situation. The principle of beneficence could have been applied to resuscitate a diabetic coma, but because the principle of autonomy makes it difficult for the healthcare professionals to make decisions since Edward had previously refused to seek medical treatment yet treatment was provided without his own consent. This is because the patient may have had own ideas that he views beneficial his health. As such, scenarios that differ in intensity with this one requires that clinicians involve patients in dialogue to enhance the realization of the most appropriate treatment after obtaining informed consent without coercion. As such, the other stakeholders in the scenario such as Edwards wife can try to use what her husband had said in the earlier conservation about treatment. Conflicts of ethical practices are best solved using the modified version of Kerridge, Stewart, and Lowes (2013) model in problem-solving to address the disputes accordingly. Evidently, the model involves the application of critical thinking in addressing the steps that finally determines the cause of action (Kerridge et al., 2013). For this case, the first thing to be done to solve the ethical conflict starts with the identification of a problem. It involves precisely stating what the ethical issue is, after which the code of ethics that governs healthcare practitioners is applied (Pera Van, 2005). Subsequently, the nature, as well as the dimension of the conflicts, is determined to demonstrate the most preferred side that works to benefit the patient. After analyzing the situation of a patient involved in scenarios where the principle of autonomy is bridged, the healthcare providers will do the generation of all the potential courses of action. However, before the full incorporati on, an evaluation of the chosen cause of action is done, upon which its implementation is later performed. As such, the conflict can be solved by taking into consideration the idea that medical treatment is done according to the best interests of a person. As such, the practitioners are legally allowed to justify their actions by evaluating whether it is the best judgment to forego the principle of autonomy and do what is critical to the current condition of a patient. Conclusion This paper has discussed and identified the legal as well as the ethical issues that are evident in the case study. Ethics and laws are crucial in guiding the healthcare practitioners to provide medical treatment to patients in a way that cannot result in the infringement of patients' rights. Various legal and ethical issues arise in Edward's case since he had in the preceding days refused to seek medical attention. But when found unconscious and unresponsive, an analysis of his condition is analyzed, and treatment is provided by the paramedics without his own consent. This is because the practitioners have several options to treat a patient such as that of finding surrogates or substitutes who can provide consent on Edward's behalf. However, there are occasions where disagreement occurs between two or more of such surrogates and the jurisdiction to be implemented involves considering the hierarchy of the substitutes when a patient is not in a capacity to make critical decisions of a given health procedure. References Ashcroft, R. E. (2007). Principles of health care ethics. Chichester, West Sussex, England: John Wiley Sons. Beauchamp, T. L., Childress, J. F. (2001). Principles of biomedical ethics. Oxford [u.a.: Oxford Univ. Press. Danis, M., Southerland, L. I., Garrett, J. M., Smith, J. L., Hielema, F., Pickard, C. G., ... Patrick, D. L. (1991). 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