Assignment 2: Regulatory Issue In Health Care

Regulatory Issue in Health Care
Rannya Abdul-hadi
June 8th, 2015
Jeanette Fetter

Regulatory Issue in Health Care The importance of the healthcare sector cannot be understated as far as the overall wellbeing of any society or country is concerned. Indeed, almost every other aspect of any country is dependent on the healthcare sector, particularly considering that only individuals that are sufficiently healthy would be capable of undertaking wealth creating activities. Essentially, governments across the globe make immense investments so as to ensure or safeguard the sustainability and stability of the healthcare sector. Equally important, however, is the importance of regulations, rules and standards in safeguarding the sustainability
However, Janice and their three children faced apathy and immense prejudice from the Jackson Memorial Hospital in spite of the fact that Janice had the power of attorney for Lisa. Indeed, the healthcare institution refused to get information pertaining to the medical history of Lisa and informed Janice that her family could not be acknowledged or provided with any information since she was in an antigay state and city (Lambda legal, 2014). While there existed no medical reason why she should have been prevented from visiting Lisa, she and her family was prohibited from seeing Lisa for over 8 hours. Unfortunately, Lisa died and the prejudice and apathy continued, with the hospital withholding the death certificate from Janice, which prevented her from claiming her social security benefits and life insurance for the children (Lambda legal, 2014). In essence, Janice filed the lawsuit against the healthcare institution on her own behalf, as well as that of her three
It should be noted that the core values pertaining to healthcare ethics require the healthcare staff to adhere to the four principles of autonomy, beneficence, justice and nonmaleficence. Autonomy or independence revolves around honoring the right of patients to make their decisions, whole nonmaleficence revolves around doing no harm. Beneficence underlines the requirement that the patient is assisted to advance his own good, while the principle of justice requires all patients to be treated in a similar and fair manner. In essence, it goes without saying that the healthcare institution was acting in violation of the same principles that it is supposed to adhere to in the provision of healthcare services to patients. Of course, it could be argued that the healthcare institution was operating within the established laws of the state and possibly the country at large. However, it should be noted that the key right of the patient and, in fact, every other citizen in the country is to ensure that no harm is caused to the patient and that the autonomy and independence of the citizen and patient to make decisions pertaining to his or her life is nonnegotiable. Indeed, scholars have