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Ethical dilemma faced by Health-care during Covid-19

The facts

During Covid-19, several countries adopted progressive regulations in order to protect their healthcare systems against potential emergent unethical behaviours. Moreover, the emergency created by the pandemic, the actual medical system and the scarcity of resources pushed medical practitioners to take unethical decisions by constraint. This ethical delimma invloves medical practitioners and global heath-care systems which were affected by the pandemic as a whole.

Causes

“The current ethical guidelines are not overly helpful. ...They don’t provide a lot of concrete guidance about when health-care workers can ethically refuse to work versus when they have an ethical duty to treat patients,” said Lorian Hardcastle, a professor in the faculties of law and medicine at the University of Calgary. From the restriction of fundamental liberties to the rationing of scarce medical resources, the spread of Covid-19 has raised extraordinary ethical dilemmas for the health-care system. The scarcity of public health resources and service has led to the ethical dilemma of the care providers regarding the prioritization of patients, based on their conditions and needs for healthcare.

Considering that the medical practitioners have a significant role to play in the decision making for the treatment of the patients in a challenging situation, the medical practitioners would require upholding fundamental principles of medical ethics such as justice, autonomy, and beneficence. Thus, teaching medical ethics and scientific honesty need to be taught officially in medical programs.

Response

Considering that the virus is contagious there was an ethical dilemma being faced by the healthcare workers who are concerned about their life threats in addressing the patients’ needs. Furthermore, this affects the overall welfare of the patients if healthcare workers refuse to attend to the patients if they are concerned about their life.

Many healthcare institutions, either due to efforts of containing the virus in a hospital or clinic have refused admission to patients. It has been noted that many patients in the hospital in Northern Italy had been dead due to the negligence of the nurses and the refusal of the doctors to attend to the patients in time.

Outcomes

Considering that the medical practitioners have a significant role to play in the decision making for the treatment of the patients in a challenging situation, the medical practitioners would require upholding fundamental principles of medical ethics such as justice, autonomy, and beneficence. Thus, teaching medical ethics and scientific honesty need to be taught officially in medical programs. It's recommended that the policies in the healthcare institutions need to be revised to increase the supply of necessary resources and other equipment taking into account the demand for treating the patients during Covid-19.

The healthcare policies also need to be revised to include an arrangement of higher numbers of healthcare workers, both permanent and temporary to address the care demands. New regulations need to be formulated for extending health benefits to the doctors and giving them exemptions so that they can provide care without hesitation.

The future

Finally, through the Covid-19 pandemic situation, we need to understand more what comes first. Protecting lives of healthcare workers or the life of patients? Is it worth to observe ethical standards, take the risk and expose medical workers lives to danger? Is it justified to expose the life of medical practitioners and their family members to threats and save the lives of citizens? Such a unique and difficult dilemma as this, isn't easy to come up with a solution for. However, resolutions should include changes in public polices and health polices for better preperation to deal with emergencies. Along with regulations to protect the life of the workers and also maintain community and public welfare.

Resources:

COVID-19: Public health issues and ethical dilemmas - PubMed (nih.gov) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33553555/

Coronavirus outbreak raises ethical dilemmas for governments and health-care systems - The Globe and Mail https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-coronavirus-outbreak-raises-ethical-dilemmas-for-governments-and/

Public health ethics framework: A guide for use in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada - Canada.ca https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/2019-novel-coronavirus-infection/canadas-reponse/ethics-framework-guide-use-response-covid-19-pandemic.html

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