Alternative Expert Answer and Explanation Ethical Problem
The state of poverty among the marginalized community and immigrants within the nation is alarming. There are various scenarios in which a healthcare worker might be confronted with an ethical problem that is concerning a patient’s state of poverty. Healthcare workers have a decree to always provide professional care and ensure improved patient outcomes (Kotsenas et al., 2018).
However, there is a scenario where a cancer patient in need of urgent medical care but do not have a cover to facilitate the financial obligation to the care. The ethical dilemma with the case is that the health care practitioner would be going against the principles of beneficence and nonmaleficence as they are ethically bound to offer services to an ill patient but due to lack of finances or an insurance cover to carter for the finances, the patient might not be able to be accorded the much-needed care.
Ethical Solutions
Finances are crucial to the attainment of quality services from any healthcare institution. Cancer patients are at the mist risk as they suffer from a chronic illness and if not treated, accelerates the dying process and have excruciating pain to the person. One of the main solutions to the issue of finances for chronic patients is the provision of subsidies by the government. Policies regarding subsidies to patients that have to undergo occasional radiation can be beneficial to help attain patient care.
There is also the capacity to have state-owned cancer centers where patients can make use of the ACA through Medicaid and Medicare (Griffith, Evans, & Bor, 2017). There can also be the option to have little to no tax on medical equipment and technologies that are used for the treatment of cancer so that medical care can be affordable for the poor. Some solutions are in line with care-based ethics. The nurse and other healthcare practitioners can also ensure that the condition of the patient is not life-threatening before withdrawing all the services required for survival.
Patient safety is important and advocacy for affordable care and other alternative financings can help the patient in acquiring funds for the medical practice. The solutions both from the side of the government and from seeking additional help are based on persuasiveness.
Health Care Technology
Social media on one of the technologies that can be involved with this solution. Promotions of hashtags and trending the need for the affordability of medication are essential to acquire a better response. Running posters on social media such as Facebook and Twitter can aid in sourcing for funding that can be used to pay for the services.
The moral guideline for using the technology requires patient privacy and only make public information necessitated by the patient (Ayala, & Alarcon, 2020). The guidelines for using technology can be focused on the social contract of ethics where people can come together to help one in need through sponsorship or financial aid for them to acquire.
Moral Guidelines in Social Technology
Social technologies such as blogs, online encyclopedias, and crowdfunding can be used to create awareness for the need for medical aid and to source funding to facilitate the medical process. Through the application of utilitarianism, it can be possible to come up with guidelines where people see helping the needy acquire medication as a common good.
The initiative can help seek medical attention and help meet the financial obligations required for medical care. through the provision of assistance to other people when in need can be viewed as moral and can be reciprocated when one is also in need. (Michalsen et al., 2020) The reciprocity of assistance cements the ideology of utilitarianism and is a firm guideline to enabling care services to people in need.
References
Ayala, R., & Alarcon, B. (2020). The social contract and health care in Chile. The Lancet, 396(10255), 882-883.
Griffith, K., Evans, L., & Bor, J. (2017). The Affordable Care Act reduced socioeconomic disparities in health care access. Health Affairs, 36(8), 1503-1510.
Kotsenas, A. L., Arce, M., Aase, L., Timimi, F. K., Young, C., & Wald, J. T. (2018). The strategic imperative for the use of social media in health care. Journal of the American College of Radiology, 15(1), 155-161.
Michalsen, A., Vergano, M., Quintel, M., Sadovnikoff, N., & Truog, R. D. (2020). Epilogue: Critical Care During a Pandemic–A Shift from Deontology to Utilitarianism?. In Compelling Ethical Challenges in Critical Care and Emergency Medicine (pp. 157-166). Springer, Cham.
