Institutional Ethics and Economy
Not what you're looking for?
SCENARIO: Jeff Henderson is an 11-year-old boy living in your local community with his parents and his younger sister. Jeff has a rare disease which, while not immediately life-threatening, will become life-threatening as he ages. His disease requires ongoing treatment with a very expensive medicine. Although both his parents work, their employers do not offer health care insurance and the family cannot afford coverage. Jeffâ??s current treatment needs can be met by the local hospital. However, as he grows older and needs more frequent care, the local hospital is faced with ever-increasing demands on the pool of funds they use for indigent care. Jeffâ??s medicine is currently consuming almost half of the entire annual pool. The nearest hospital that can take on Jeffâ??s care and absorb the costs is 75 miles away. Transferring Jeff to that hospital will mean four 150-mile round-trips each month. Since Jeff is too young to drive, one of his parents will lose a dayâ??s work each month to take him for care. After considerable deliberation with the hospital ethics committee, the decision is made to tell Jeff and his family that he will have to transfer his care to the other hospital as this hospital can no longer continue to absorb the costs of his medicines. What is your analysis of the various ethical considerations involved in this situation? Do you agree with the hospitalâ??s decision? Explain the rationale for your decision.
Argue both sides of the issue, explicitly basing your arguments on ethical theories and/or principles.
Can you include these points also:
-the best interests of the larger community
-physicians must act on the best interest of the patient, no matter the costs
-allocation of resources
-cost containment with institutional survival.
Purchase this Solution
Solution Summary
The solution involves discussing a case of one patient under institutional care that surpasses the funds allocated for all indigent care taking in consideration ethical issues such as allocation of resources and Pareto criterion, principle of beneficence and non-beneficece, paternalism and duty to do no harm.
Solution Preview
Hope this helps you.
Thank you for using BrainMass.
I consider the decision taken a morally justifiable choice. The first issue describes a child with a chronic condition that will deteriorate with time. With no other source to cover for treatment, the child is been treated at a local hospital that has indigent care. At the moment the child utilizes 50% of the money allocated for indigent care. It shows an inequality where more than having an unequal allocation of resources, there is harm to social welfare by preventing access to care of a larger community of indigents. Under this conditions, the decision to transfer the child to a hospital that can absorb the cost satisfies the Pareto criterion because "if the compensatory transfer is not performed, the losers would remain losers" (Fleurbaey, 2008, 3.1 Old and New, para. 1) whereas by doing the compensatory transfers under the Kaldor's criterion there will be a ...
Purchase this Solution
Free BrainMass Quizzes
Crohn's Disease
How much do you know about this condition?
Tumor Markers
This quiz help you memorize common tumor markers used to detect and diagnose some types of cancer.
First Aid
Do you know how to provide first aid?
Labor and Delivery
Do you know about the stages of delivery? Find out with this quiz!
Test your health planning and program evaluation knowledge
Health planning and program evaluation is an important aspect of the Health Sciences' field. Organizations and communities must understand the needs of their audiences, and a way to obtain this datum is through proper design and assessment. This quiz will test your ability to understand the importance of planning and evaluation in the health sector.