Ethical Healthcare Issues
There are questions about transplant allocation in regards to the four major ethical principles in medical ethics: beneficence, autonomy, nonmaleficence and justice. Beneficence is the “obligation of healthcare providers to help people” that are in need, autonomy is the “right of patients to make choices” in regards to their healthcare, nonmaleficence, is the “duty of the healthcare providers to do no harm”, and justice is the “concept of treating everyone in a fair manner” ("Medical Ethics & the Rationing of Health Care: Introduction", n.d., p. 1).
When medical care providers are forced to make decisions and these decisions “violate one of the four principles of medical ethics” so that they can adhere to another of these principles this is considered an ethical dilemma (“Medical Ethics & the Rationing of Health Care: Introduction”, n.d., p. 1). Bioethicists refer to the healthcare ethics four principles in their merits evaluation and medical procedure difficulties as transplants. Organ and or transplant allocation policies has a mixture of legal, ethical, scientific and many others, however the focus here will be to show how the four ethical principles, autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence and justice, applies to transplant allocation (Childress, 2001, p. 5).
UNOS (United Network for Organ Sharing) is a system of allocation, what it does is arrange organs based on the region that the donations came from before being offered to outside regions. The focus is on the criteria for allocation that may be ethically defensible. It is maintained that organs are a resource of national community, for accidents are of geography and are “morally irrelevant” (DeVita, Aulisio, & May, 2001, p. 1). Many people are he...
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...ned and that every circumstance of each patient is considered individually.
Nonmaleficence
Unanticipated harm should not be brought to donors, patients or anyone else that may be involved in the process of transplants. There should not be any intentional or malicious harm. If a patient has been placed in harm unknowingly or knowingly during transplantation, then this principle has been violated. Childress (2001), states that it is hard to define the nature of harm, for there are several types of harm. For example, if a healthcare provider does a transplant and the pain that is inflicted on that patient in the attempt to prevent death, then that healthcare provider has caused harm to avoid an even greater harm (p.4).
Conclusion
Ethical healthcare issues are unavoidable as long as we have healthcare organizations and healthcare professionals. Transplant allocation
In his article “Opt-out organ donation without presumptions”, Ben Saunders is writing to defend an opt-out organ donation system in which cadaveric organs can be used except in the case that the deceased person has registered an objection and has opted-out of organ donation. Saunders provides many arguments to defend his stance and to support his conclusion. This paper will discuss the premises and elements of Saunders’ argument and how these premises support his conclusion. Furthermore, this paper will discuss the effectiveness of Saunders’ argument, including its strengths and weaknesses. Lastly, it will discuss how someone with an opposing view might respond to his article,
Yearly, thousands die from not receiving the organs needed to help save their lives; Anthony Gregory raises the question to why organ sales are deemed illegal in his piece “Why legalizing organ sales would help to save lives, end violence”, which was published in The Atlantic in November of 2011. Anthony Gregory has written hundreds of articles for magazines and newspapers, amongst the hundreds of articles is his piece on the selling of organs. Gregory states “Donors of blood, semen, and eggs, and volunteers for medical trials, are often compensated. Why not apply the same principle to organs? (p 451, para 2)”. The preceding quote allows and proposes readers to ponder on the thought of there being an organ
First of all, we can assess issues concerning the donor. For example, is it ever ethically acceptable to weaken one person’s body to benefit another? It has to be said that the practiced procedures are not conducted in the safest of ways, which can lead to complications for both donors and recipients (Delmonico 1416). There are also questions concerning of informed consent: involved donors are not always properly informed about the procedure and are certainly not always competent to the point of fully grasping the situation (Greenberg 240). Moral dilemmas arise for the organ recipient as well. For instance, how is it morally justifiable to seek and purchase organs in foreign countries? Is it morally acceptable to put oneself in a dangerous situation in order to receive a new organ? Some serious safety issues are neglected in such transactions since the procedures sometimes take place in unregulated clinics (Shimazono 959). There is also the concept of right to health involved in this case (Loriggio). Does someone’s right to health have more value than someone else’s? Does having more money than someone else put your rights above theirs? All of these questions have critical consequences when put into the context of transplant tourism and the foreign organ trade. The answers to these questions are all taken into account when answering if it is morally justifiable to purchase
In her article, Satel criticizes the current methods governing organ sharing in the United States, and suggests that the government should encourage organ donation, whether it was by providing financial incentives or other compensatory means to the public. Furthermore, the author briefly suggests that the European “presumed consent” system for organ donation might remedy this shortage of organs if implicated in the States.
John Harris visualises a world where transplant operations are faultless and that anyone who needs a transplant can have the operation successfully providing that there are the suitable organs accessible, if not the doctor would have to let them die. Y and Z refuse to accept this inevitable death and argue on utilitarian grounds that it is better if one human dies and donates his organ...
Organ sales and donation are a controversial topic that many individuals cannot seem to agree upon. However, if someone close; a family member, friend, or someone important in life needed a transplant, would that mindset change? There are over one hundred and nineteen thousand men, women, and children currently waiting on the transplant list, and twenty-two of them die each day waiting for a transplant (Organ, 2015). The numbers do not lie. Something needs to be done to ensure a second chance at life for these individuals. Unfortunately, organ sales are illegal per federal law and deemed immoral. Why is it the government’s choice what individuals do with their own body? Organ sales can be considered an ethical practice when all sides of the story are examined. There are a few meanings to the word ethical in this situation; first, it would boost the supply for the
Satel starts her essay with an appeal to emotion, detailing the shortage of organ transplants and the deaths that result. She emphasizes her personal struggle and desperation over the need of a kidney transplant. Unable to discover a match and dialysis soon approaching, she “wondered about going overseas to become a “transplant tourist”, but getting a black market organ seemed too risky.”(Satel, 128) She argues for a change in the United States donor system policy to mimic the European system of implied consent. Satel also argues for the implementation of an incentive system to compensate donors for their organs, in order to increase the amount of available donors in the system. Her argument has insignificant weaknesses in comparison to her strongly supported and validated points.
6. Rothman, D. 1996. "Bodily Integrity and the Socially Disadvantaged: The traffic in Organs for Transplantation." In Organ and Tissue Donation; Ethical, legal, and policy issues. Speilman, B. (ed.).
The principle of distributive justice as it relates to healthcare requires that all resources are allocated equitably among all individuals. Resources, whether abundant or scare are distributed fairly to any individual requiring them but in the constrained resource environment of available organs criteria have already been established by other agencies. First and foremost the establishment of these criteria negate the principle of distributive justice because there are individuals who regardless of their place on the waiting list will be turned away. On the other hand individuals with higher incomes or additional financial means have the advantage over those with limited financial assets if advertising and purchasing organs is the future trend of transplant surgery. Again distributive justice is violated, this time ...
When viewing organ donation from a moral standpoint we come across many different views depending on the ethical theory. The controversy lies between what is the underlying value and what act is right or wrong. Deciding what is best for both parties and acting out of virtue and not selfishness is another debatable belief. Viewing Kant and Utilitarianism theories we can determine what they would have thought on organ donation. Although it seems judicious, there are professionals who seek the attention to be famous and the first to accomplish something. Although we are responsible for ourselves and our children, the motives of a professional can seem genuine when we are in desperate times which in fact are the opposite. When faced with a decision about our or our children’s life and well being we may be a little naïve. The decisions the patients who were essentially guinea pigs for the first transplants and organ donation saw no other options since they were dying anyways. Although these doctors saw this as an opportunity to be the first one to do this and be famous they also helped further our medical technology. The debate is if they did it with all good ethical reasoning. Of course they had to do it on someone and preying upon the sick and dying was their only choice. Therefore we are responsible for our own health but when it is compromised the decisions we make can also be compromised.
Removing an organ from a healthy human-being, to be placed in another person, seems to violate this basic value. However, maximizing benefits while minimizing potential harms seems to be the logical course to take when concerning human life. Taking an organ from a seemingly normal person, upon their consent, to be given to an individual in need of a vital organ, to save their life, is a modern, medical miracle. Organ donors are able to live ordinary lives, proceeding their operation, while lucky patients receive the treatment they need to survive. These amazing, life-changing transplants are often neglected because public concern does not focus on organ donation issues. Within the United States, many people are not registered as organ donors, or even know that there is a major shortage of these essential organs. The United States need to take an initiative that will allow for an idealistic, organ donation
Nadiminti, H. (2005) Organ Transplantation: A dream of the past, a reality of the present, an ethical Challenge for the future. Retrieved February 12, 2014 from http://virtualmentor.ama-assn.org/2005/09/fred1-0509.html
In conclusion, although there are some valid reasons to support the creation of an organ market based on the principles of beneficence and autonomy, there are also many overriding reasons against the market. Allowing the existence of organ markets would theoretically increase the number of organ transplants by living donors, but the negative results that these organ markets will have on society are too grave. Thus, the usage of justice and nonmaleficence as guiding ethical principles precisely restricts the creation of the organ market as an ethical system.
Every ten minutes someone in need of an organ is added to the national organ transplant waiting list (Unos). The major problem with the transplant list is that it has been growing bigger and bigger every day and there aren’t enough organs to fill the needs of all these people. Although America is one of the most developed countries in the world, we lack organ donation policies. Unlike America and Germany, places like Austria, Finland, Greece, and Spain all have “Opt-out” laws, which helps raise the rate of organ donation drastically (Zúñiga-Fajuri). In recent years there has been a major decline in the amount of organs being donated; this can be blamed on how and where people are “dying” and the fact that they aren’t organ donors (Bryan). In order to
The organ transplant is “ surgical removal of a healthy organ from one person and its transplantation into another person whose organ has failed or was injured”.Organ transplantation helps saves many lives but the question is how should doctors choose recipients for organ transplants?Some people thinks that only people with right background and needs should receive but from my point of view i think everyone who is in need for organ transplant should receive it.I think people as doctor shouldn’t check for their recipients background and treat them as other patients.No matter where that person came from, a doctor shouldn’t think for second instead help them to fullfill their responsibility as doctor.People who are fighting for death and needs