In January 2015, the death of a young First Nations girl sparked much controversy after her family withdrew chemotherapy in favour of traditional medicine. Eleven-year-old, Makayla Sault passed away after her battle with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. She had been given a 72% survival rate by doctors with a treatment planning involving intense chemotherapy, however, this aggressive approach landed her in the intensive care unit in the matter of 11 weeks. After the chemotherapy taking a major toll on the young girl’s body, both physically and mentally, and it came to the point that her parents were questioning if it was doing any good. Sonya Sault, Makayla’s mother, recalls her daughter telling her “I don't care if I'm going to die, I don't want …show more content…
It is because of this that traditional medicine focuses on treating the person holistically, or in other words treating the physical body as well as the soul (Sorajjakool, Carr, and Bursey 39). Also, it is believed that one can achieve wellness and balance by connecting with nature which is a reason that natural remedies such as herbs and spiritual rituals are used (Sorajjakool, Carr, and Bursey 36-37). While she was given a better chance of survival with chemotherapy, it made her very sick and very distraught with the treatment and thus was not only was her physical body out of balance, her mind was also unbalanced which could have been a reason in which she wanted to switch to natural medicine (Casey). While her treatment plan may not have cured her that was not necessarily her goal. Often the main goal is to not overcome their illness but rather to understand and be in harmony with it (Sorajjakool, Carr, and Bursey …show more content…
Respect for autonomy, which refers to honoring a patient’s wishes, is very important since she and her parents wanted to stop the treatment that was making her sick, despite the medical staff saying otherwise. However, to force the child to receive treatment would be breaking the principle of non-maleficence, or protecting the patient from harm, because even though it may cure her, the chemotherapy was too harsh for her body to handle and landed her in the intensive care unit and thus would be causing her more harm than good. Healthcare professionals are expected to provide care that will benefit the patient, otherwise known as the principle of beneficence. The medical staff as the hospital were doing what they thought was best for Makayla to give her the best chance as beating her cancer, however, they would have caused her harm by going against her wishes which were rooted in her religious beliefs as well as giving her treatment that she no longer wanted to receive. There is also the issue the family was discriminated against because of their religious beliefs. The healthcare professionals did not take the family’s request to switch to treatment that is a part of their culture seriously, in fact they went so far as to call the authorities to remove the children from the home because they felt that by doing so would be neglecting to provide the proper care for the
The medical staff’s ethical principals were non-existent. Unfortunately since Tomcik was in an institution therefore she had no means of autonomy. She was not able to effectively make her own decisions regarding how she was to be treated. The healthcare staff did not use moral judgment throughout her care. She was ignored and not given the proper care that was needed.
These debates consist of patient’s rights and what they are entitled to that specifically relates to them. It explains her life from the viewpoint of other people but mainly her daughter who deals with these
The system actually failed Lia, Lia’s parent and the medical personnel at MCMC who were involved in Lia’s care. Although the doctors and nurses can be blamed why they gave prescriptions to be taken at home without ensuring understanding of the parents, why an interpreter is not present during treatment and consultation, it is also the parent’s responsibility to ask
As a nurse dignity is providing each individual with the best possible care despite circumstances, differences in morals, beliefs and cultures. It is preserving personhood and humanity in all situations, acknowledging their values even if they contradict our own. Both Lia’s parents and the doctors had Lia’s best interest in mind they had different view points and approaches in reaching that unanimous goal. Caregivers could have restored dignity to the Lee’s by making them feel respected, that their traditions and culture were valued. Neil and Peggy were even more surprised- and grieved- to learn that the Lees believed that Lia had been taken from them in the first place not to safeguard her health but because the doctors were angry at [them] for being non compliant, and wished to inflict punishment (p.110).
In interviewing my mother and sister-in-law, I was fully aware that there would be two distinct perspectives relating to health, healing, birth and death. The fact that my mother did not acknowledge our indigenous bloodline was of no surprise to me. That is partially due to the society she grew up in, where repressing any indigenous identity, were rejected influences by colonization and intergenerational trauma. Whereas, interviewing my sister-in-law who is indigenous and identifies as a Kichwa woman, grew up with a completely different philosophy, belief and acceptance. The reason I state this is to give a clear understanding of how these two opposite ideologies influenced my world.
This strong belief against only using medical help was heightened by the doctors frustration towards the Lee family for not following instructions, as well as the difference in perspectives of seeing Lia’s condition as special, the Lee family feeling as if Lia was “like a member of royalty” (Fadiman, 1997, p.22) due to her condition, and the doctors stubbornness to treat it with a multitude of medications with negative side effects. Unfortunately, the combination of not understanding the medication application, as well as conflicting culture beliefs, lead the doctors to think the Lee family was not complying with them, and felt “Lia’s parents were endangering her health” (Fadiman, 1997, p.79) which lead them to contact child services. This process of taking away Lia, which only worsened her condition, could have been handled more appropriately if the doctors had underwent enculturation, being defined as “the process of learning behaviors, languages, beliefs, and roles common to ones first or home cultures” (Barrera et al., 2012 p. xx), this allowing the doctors to not think poorly of the Lia’s parent’s but instead understanding of the cultural beliefs and reasons for them. However, it would be unfair to state the doctors didn’t give the Lee’s the benefit of the doubt, Fadiman (1997) stating that Neil, one of Lia’s doctors, “postponed calling Child Protective Services for as long as he could, giving Lia’s parents every possible chance to reform, talking the case over with his wife every night” (Fadiman, 1997, p.79) and only reported the family under the true impression that he was doing what was in the best interest of
In this case, the indigenous mother was taken into segregated hospitals to receive treatment but instead, the medical professionals took advantage
The ethical principle of autonomy provides for respect for the patient’s autonomy to make decisions and choices concerning their life and death. Respecting the patient’s autonomy goes against the principles of beneficence and non-maleficence. There also exists the issue of religious beliefs the patient, family, or the caretaker holds, with which the caretaker has to grapple. The caretaker thus faces issues of fidelity to patient welfare by not abandoning the patient or their family, compassionate provision of pain relief methods, and the moral precept to neither hasten death nor prolong life.
I argue that the techniques that Lopez used throughout the article created a strong argument that could very likely change the minds of many people in the world that support such an unethical act. Katherine Jean Lopez starts this article with an excerpt from a letter that a girl dying of cancer writes to another girl with cancer that wants to end her life with physicians-assisted
All nurses and healthcare professionals are obligated to help patients and to follow through on the desire to good and not harm them. The doctors and nurses in the study did not hold up their obligation to give the participants in the study the best treatment for their disease. Since penicillin was being used for the treatment of penicillin in the 1940s, the doctors and nurses should have given the participants of the study the penicillin according to the ethical principle of beneficence. Instead of giving the participants the penicillin, the doctors and nurses continued with the original ‘treatment’ even though they knew it would not cure the participants’
Autonomy: In a healthcare setting, the right of a patient to make informed choices about their body is defined as autonomy. The moral principle of respect for autonomy directs healthcare providers to refrain from preventing patients from making their own decisions unless these choices pose serious risks to the patient or society. This means that an informed and competent patient has the ability to either accept or decline treatments, surgeries and medications. From the information gathered in the assignment case, it can be assumed that Joseph is in a rational state of mind.
Subsequently looking at the overall arch of such principles is the justice which should support fair, equitable and appropriate treatment and or intervention for the individual. A highly stressful time for family regarding decisions that need to be made, while others define the decision as a clinical one, where the doctor will
The practice of health care includes many scenarios that have to do with making adequate decisions when it comes to a patient’s life, and the way they are treated. Having an ethical code in all health care organizations is very important, because it helps health care workers with reaching a suited and ethical decision when it comes to the patient. In health care, patient will always be put first, and their autonomy will always be respected. Nevertheless, when there is a situation where a patient might be in harm, or might be making their condition worse because of the decisions they made. Health care workers will always be there to
Involving a medically trained ethicist to provide family members with some guidance on this very difficult decision can be helpful. In the article, “When living is a Fate Worse than Death”, Christine Mitchell describes a sympathetic, emotional look into the life and death of a family’s little girl.
Ethical Issues in Healthcare There are many ethical issues facing health care at any time and it is impossible to say definitively which is the most pressing or the most important. Health care professionals are expected to base their practice on a set of ethical principles, including truthfulness, beneficence, nonmaleficence, justice, and confidentiality. Ethical issues can arise, however, when a l professional is called upon to act in opposition to personal values or in cases where the values of patient, health care worker, and sponsoring institution conflict. The following issues are presented in no order. Neonatal Ethics Neonates are babies within their first twenty-eight days of life.