Law and ethics in healthcare
In the health care industry, legal and ethical questions are subjective because everyone has a different perception on what is right. However, health care practitioners have to handle situations that impact on their profession because of the legal and ethical issues. The health care industry does not have a set of clearly stated legal and ethical guidelines because no medical practitioner wants to be held responsible for anything that goes wrong in the practice (Hall, et al. 2007). Most of the procedures carried out by the medical practitioners are risky and may be fatal. However, sometimes health practitioners are careless in their profession leading to the fatalities. Since no one wants to be liable for their mistakes, the healthcare industry finds it prudent not to have clear legal and ethical guidelines.
Failure to have clearly stated ethical and legal guidelines in the health care industry has adverse implications. Lack of these guidelines compromises the quality of services provided by the medical practitioners. Since laws and ethics do not bind these practitioners, they may act irresponsibly at the expense of the patients and compromise their health (McLean & Mason, 2003). The practitioners may even cause death of a patient and still go without prosecution because the industry does not have strict penalties or fines for failure to observe ethics.
Lack of clearly stated ethical and legal guidelines in the health care industry affects the thought that every person is responsible for his or her own actions. Since there are no binding rules, practitioners become irresponsible and they are not accountable for their actions. In case of any wrong treatment offered to a patient or a fatality, the responsibility is on the organization and not the medical practitioner on the wrong. Thus, without legal and ethical guidelines, medical practitioners are not responsible for their own actions.
References
Hall, M.A., Bobinski, M.A. & Orentlicher, D. (2007). Health care law and ethics. New York:
Aspen Publishers.
McLean, S. & Mason, J.K. (2003). Legal and ethical aspects of healthcare. London: Cromwell
Press.
