Laman, M., Pomat, W., Siba, P., & Betuela, I. (2013). “Ethical Challenges in Integrating Patient-Care with Clinical Research in a Resource-Limited Setting: Perspectives from Papua New Guinea”
The article focuses on the equal delivery of healthcare services to everyone regardless of race, gender, and place of origin. Ethically, healthcare providers, and health care systems should not discriminate against individuals basing on income, race, education, or gender in the delivery of healthcare services. According to the article, poverty is one of the major impediments in the delivery of quality healthcare services. Laman, Pomat, Siba, and Betuela (2013) explain that several developing countries have inadequate resources, and thus, equal and just access and delivery of quality healthcare services to everyone is very challenging and prone to ethical issues related to accessibility, affordability, safety, and quality. Some of the strategies that the article examines include funding, provision of subsidized healthcare services, and the use of affordable health insurance by low-income earners globally. The article elucidates the ethical obligation of ensuring that the delivery of healthcare services does not involve discrimination against other people owing to their socioeconomic conditions.
The affordability and accessibility of healthcare services have serious implications across the globe because they bring out ethical issues. While rich people can easily access and afford healthcare services, the poor continue to languish in their poverty. Since healthcare services comprise a universal right, inaccessible, and unaffordable healthcare services demean human dignity. In this view, the article recognizes that the delivery of healthcare services is dependent on the resources and facilities that the healthcare systems of diverse countries own. Laman et al. (2013) argue that the promotion of equitable, accessible, and affordable healthcare services enables healthcare providers to serve the poor without violating their rights to utilize healthcare services. In this view, many countries experience ethical issues in their respective health care systems owing to inaccessible and unaffordable healthcare services.
Additionally, the article recommends increasing the accessibility to healthcare services without undue discrimination. Among the issues that the article presents are funding and subsidization of healthcare services so that all individuals can easily access them. The article also advocates for a process that focuses on the improvement of healthcare resources in an attempt to ensure that all citizens can afford basic healthcare services. Essentially, the article explains that poverty and inadequate resources comprise some of the impediments to the accessibility and affordability of healthcare services in developing countries (Lama et al., 2013). Additionally, to advance easy access to improved healthcare services, the article encourages fairness and equal delivery of healthcare services to all people without discrimination. Therefore, the article proves to be critical in expounding ethical issues related to accessibility and affordability of healthcare services.
McNaughton, G. (2011). “Healthcare Systems and Equality Rights”
In an attempt to explain the significance of fairness in accessibility and affordability of healthcare services by everyone across the world, the article examines the link between equity and quality healthcare services. The article focuses on improving the affordability and accessibility of healthcare services by all people globally, irrespective of their income, education levels, race, and gender. Additionally, it advocates for equity in the provision of healthcare services across the world. According to McNaughton (2011), millions of people across the world die because they cannot access quality healthcare services owing to discrimination. Therefore, improved accessibility and affordability to quality, safe, and just healthcare services require the development of strategies such as reduction of the cost related to healthcare services, insurance cover, and economic empowerment of the poor. To ensure equitable access to healthcare resources, it is ethical for the healthcare systems to establish healthcare centers within the proximity of all individuals.
Given that accessibility and affordability of healthcare services influence the delivery of healthcare services, they elicit ethical issues among healthcare providers. The article asserts that health and equality are inseparable aspects of healthcare delivery (McNaughton, 2011). In response to ethical issues, healthcare providers find it challenging since they are unable to offer quality healthcare services, which are affordable and accessible to everyone. In this view, healthcare providers have to compromise their ethics when providing quality care so that they can offer accessible and affordable healthcare services. Therefore, healthcare providers in developing countries violate ethical principles of fairness, justice, and equity because they have limited resources and facilities that are essential in the provision of quality healthcare services.
Effective application of ethics such as fairness and equal treatment of individuals by medical practitioners results in the fair and equal administration of health care services to everybody. In the article, subsidization of healthcare costs, provision of cheap insurance cover, and the empowerment of individuals are some of the main strategies that are instrumental in ensuring equitable accessibility of healthcare services. McNaughton (2011) explains that when a nation ensures that healthcare resources are available in every part of the country, the delivery and administration of the healthcare services become fair and just. Although the article explains that some individuals may downplay the significance of these initiatives, it outlines that increased accessibility of quality healthcare services by any person is ethical. Hence, it is imperative to elucidate that universal access to quality, just, and affordable healthcare is attainable if healthcare providers and health care systems encourage fair and indiscriminate delivery of healthcare services.
References
Laman, M., Pomat, W., Siba, P., & Betuela, I. (2013). Ethical Challenges in Integrating
Patient-Care with Clinical Research in a Resource-Limited Setting: Perspectives from Papua New Guinea. BMC Medical Ethics, 14(29), 1-6.
McNaughton, G. (2011). Healthcare Systems and Equality Rights. The Equal Rights Review, 6(1), 61-82.