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. Neonatal medicine provides specialized and intensive …show more content…
However, donation involves asking ethical questions because the treatment affects not only the people in need of transplants but also the individuals who donate. The main reason why people may consider donating organs is because of the very great benefit that this can bring to others. On the other hand, some find the idea of organ donation too invasive. Those people believe that it is wrong to take organs from people. The decision to or not to donate is a moral decision. There can be no right or wrong answering this. There is a policy known as the Dead donor rule that raises a lot of ethical questions. Medical professionals must weight the value of saving a life with the individual rights with their body. However, with this rule the person must be declared dead before a doctor can harvest the organs. My debates lie in when is dead dead. According to doctors, it is the absence of breathing and a pulse and/or the stopping of brain function. In most countries, people must opt-in for organ donation. Those wishing to do so are flagged though their driver license now. Again, there is no simple answer to what right or wrong and even hospital laws is vary from state to
Meaning although an individual is technically still alive it is considered ethically acceptable utilize them for organ transplants (BMJ,
Refusal of Organ Donation After Death Organ donation definition: it takes healthy organs and tissues from one person(the donor) for transplantation into another(the recipient). An organ transplant may save a person's life, or significantly improve their health and quality of life. Main Social Problem: Refusal of many people to donate due to many factors and obstacles. A chronic shortage of organs for transplantation has and continues to be one of the most controversial pressing health issues in many developed countries.
The argument of whether organ donors should be compensated for their efforts has become a heated topic. The two sides of the argument have equally valid points, but one must look to the benefit of not only the organ recipients, but also to the donors and to their well-being. There are more ways than one to get the desired organs, not all of them legal in the least. The exploitation of the poor that would accompany the choice of paying people for organ donation would most likely be devastating. Ultimately, organ donation should remain a gift between the donor and the recipient to reduce the chance of exploitation of any participants.
Occasionally the donor 's family will misinterpret the hospital bill they recieve. The expenses on the bill are always from the procedures the staff carryout while trying to save the person’s life, not the extraction of the organs. Before you say no to organ donation, make sure the reasons you don’t want to become a donor are valid. There are many organs you can donate after you are deceased to save other peoples lives. Organs that are donated after the recipient is dead are called cadaveric organs.
The successful transplant surgery was performed two months later in March of 2000.... The ability to keep someone alive by replacing one or more of their major organs is an astounding achievement of 20th-century medicine. Unfortunately, the current supply of transplant organs is much lower than the need or demand for them, which means that thousands of people die every year in the U.S. alone for lack of a replacement organ. Ethical issues arise in connection with both the Procurement of transplant organs as well as
Every nation has laws governing them so does ethics and code of conduct in the medical field. Major ethical issues become a threat which in most cases are settled in the courts. We will now discuss each of the ethical issues surrounding organ transplant as follows: a. Ethical issues involving the donor Organs can be obtained from a deceased person, a living donor, in infant donor or from a human fetus. Decease donors in most cases write a will prior to their deaths permitting their own organs to be given to someone else. Apparently, this is considered to be the most appropriate because it does not cause any harm, especially physical harm to the donor.
On December 23 1954, the first successful living-related kidney transplant took place, taking the medical world by storm. Organ Transplants have been experimented with since the 1800s, but by the 20th century, they were finally successful.(U.S. Department of Health & Human Services). Despite the common controversy of organ transplants, the decision on whether they are ethical is ultimately up to the patient. For organ donor recipients, organ transplants are often a second chance at life. Some people spend their whole lives struggling with one part of their body, which is holding them back from their everyday lives.
According to World Journal of Transplantation, 2015, “transplantation ethics is the philosophy that incorporates systematizing, defending, and advocating concepts of right and wrong related to organ donation and allocation. ”1 Initially, the supervision of transplant activities and centers in Germany was based on a mutual trust and interdependence. That changed after several scandals shook the transplant community. In Germany, the Deutsche Stiftung Organtransplantation [(DSO)German Organ Transplantation Foundation] is responsible for the coordination of organ donation.2
When dealing with this issue, it should not be forgotten that this is a discussion of life and death, where a decision is made on who lives, who dies and why. This issue is also regarding real people who are suffering, and decisions made based on good ethics and proper understanding of social and religious aspects will facilitate and make the process less painful. Both the community and physicians should therefore approach organ transplant positively and objectively and treat ethical, social and religious issues as negotiable perspectives and not barriers to organ
The ethical dilemma not only has to do with organ selling and if it is right or wrong but the sales of organs can be corrupted by quality and exploitation of poverty ridden individuals who may be forced into an organ donation slavery. There are two crucial
NURSING DILEMMA : TRUTH-TELLING IN TERMINAL CARE PATIENT INTRODUCTION: Cancer is one of the leading cause of mortality and morbidity in Singapore. In fact, top 5 leading cause of cancers breast cancer 63.4%, colorectal 38.7%, lung 33.8%, prostate 28.1% and liver cancer 16.6%.
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
It is usually an ethical and legal question in which a person agrees (or disagrees) to be a donor. In our public opinion of transplantation we usually interpret organ transplantation and organ donation as the same thing, so that’s why the term donation is used also for transplantation of organs from a dead person. In every category of transplantation, whether is from alive or dead person, society needs to determine criteria and rules. In a case of transplantation from a cadaver (deceased human body), an important criterion is the determination of the donator’s state (in most countries this is done in a medical institution). It is necessary for many aspects of society to have a clear line between the terms “life” and “death”, weather is to define murder or allow burial and cremation.
A growing concern in the United States is that the system for organ allocation is biased and unfair, when in fact, the criteria under scrutiny is working hard to secure the organs going to those most in need. These misconceptions surrounding the transplant distribution process are a result of the lack of proper education regarding the policies and guidelines that ensure organs are dispersed in a just, ethical, and medically sound manner. There are several organs suitable for donation, including the liver, pancreas, kidney, heart, lung, and intestines. Skin, bone and bone marrow, and corneas can be donated as well (“Transplant Living Frequently Asked Questions”). Everyday, an average of seventy-nine people receive an organ transplant (“The Need is Real: Data”).
According to Parker-Pope (2009), as many as 57 percent of people have misunderstandings regarding organ donation from a donor who is considered to be brain dead. Those without background medical knowledge may not fully comprehend the meaning of brain dead and may even believe a person can recover from that state. With that gap in communication and understanding, it is easy to see how there are misunderstandings and mistrust between medical professionals and patients as well as their families. According to Wen (2014), there are many people who not only mistrust medical professionals but also believe that if a person is an organ donor, the doctor will not work as hard to save their life which also ties into the belief of an organ and tissue black market. As if that were not enough, just the psychological discomfort that many individuals experience when discussing death could be enough to deter a person from registering as an organ donor.