Introduction
Provision of excellent health care services should be the key objective for any professional health practitioner. According to health policies and regulations, health care practitioners are required or expected to act within the Hippocratic Oath as stipulated by the governing policies and principles. One of the core principles or standard which a health practitioner is expected to uphold is to ensure maximum life protection is offered or created to the involved clients. Lack of meeting or adhering to such principles can be termed to be negligence of one’s duty. Consequently, the aftermath associated with negligence of duty can be detrimental to the health of involved client as well as the reputation of the health services provided (Lawson, 2008).
Health care negligence
This paper comprehensively analyses a case study where a medical doctor in Ohio State of the United States of America acted in a manner sufficient enough to show some levels or degree of negligence. In this case, being faced by a critical situation of a young pregnant mother whose pregnancy could not be sustained to the full period, she decides to induce an early delivery process to her client. Nevertheless, acting and making uninformed decision concerning the state of the client’s pregnancy, it led to the introduction of physical challenges to the delivered baby. These physical challenges induced to the baby were directly related to the negligence of duty by the involved doctor.
Stringent measures have been put into place to ensure that health professionals adhere to the stipulated health procedures as well as acting rationally to fulfill the desirable requirements. Nevertheless, there are several issues that need to be addressed to improve the health care systems. One healthcare issue faced is the current shortage of medical staff and nurses. Different healthcare organizations have been affected by hospital staff turnover. Majority of the medical workers have been overworked and hence deciding to leave the profession. Consequently, cases of negligence and poor service provisions have been associated with these oppressing factors such as overworking and poor working environments. Currently, the decreasing number of nurses and medical personnel is a major problem with no new trainees joining the profession. Because of this, we have very many medical injustices and errors occurring each year (Lawson, 2008).
The level of negligence manifest itself when that professional doctor opted not to conduct the Caesarean section commonly shortened as C-section. Those opposed to the actions portrayed by the doctor alleged that the main cause of the complications manifested in the delivered baby were as a subsequent insufficient supply of vital oxygen flow to the cranial region of the baby. This led to subsequent damage to the brain of the child a condition commonly referred to as cerebral palsy. In addition, the process of aborted caesarean section delivery process was also linked to the occurrence of cerebral palsy which was witnessed in the delivered child. The occurrence level was elevated when the doctor decided to use vacuum chambers to accelerate the delivery of this baby.
The medical profession has been advised to embody the Total Quality Management (TQM) approach to address the faced issues like reduced number of medical staff. TQM has been changed to Continuous Quality Improvement, CQI, and has been suggested to all organizations to explore the existing opportunities in satisfying the needs of the patients (Ley, 2007). CQI approach can help healthcare organizations to employ new employees in the medical field and give them adequate training and intervention. This will help to address the faced problem.
The professionals in the field should come up with new and rigorous measures to increase the number of medical professionals by addressing turnover rates and encouraging young learners to choose the medical career (Schriver, 2003). The CQI replaces the word paradigm assurance with a new one which is improvement. The reason why the CQI approaches are necessary is because they examine the faced problem and then design a plan to address the vital quality attributes which are efficacy, efficiency, equity and patient centered care, and by so doing provide quality healthcare.
To minimize such health risks associated with negligence of duty by health professionals, appropriate legal measures should be initiated to minimize cases of negligence. This can be through heavy fines and jail sentences to doctors who are found to neglect their duties. The type of clinical education especially on negligence of duty offered greatly determines the belief of the client towards the issue of health care services. Therefore, clinical teachers are responsible for all aspects that nurture the upcoming health professions to develop belief and the desired attitude for better patient care (Lawson, 2008).
Conclusion
Delivery of excellent health care services should be the key objective for any professional health practitioner. According to health policies and regulations, health care practitioners are required or expected to act within the Hippocratic Oath as stipulated by the governing policies and principles. Generally, every learner develops a different idea or trust concerning clinical teaching meant by the clinical teacher, this is mostly determined by the understanding made by each learner and thus it is the duty of the instructor to be aware of the level of understanding at which the learner is so as to match their teaching to that level. Generally, learners end up trusting their teachers in everything they are taught and this creates a good relationship between the two. Success comes with belief and once learners adhere to this, they end up becoming better clinicians, clinical teachers and nurses who can be of great significance to the society.
References
Lawson, P. (2008). ‘National Health Care in the United States: Exploring the Options and Possibilities.’ Journal of Health. 2(2), 34-41.
Ley, L. (2007). ‘Shortage of Nurses.’ Journal of medical practice. 3(1), 23-43.
Schriver, J. (2003). ‘Emergency Nursing: Historical, Current and Future Roles.’ Journal of Health, 3(2), 56-63.
