Medical Law and Ethics: Rights as a Healthcare Provider

Given that rights have dominated several healthcare debates, how would you define rights as a healthcare provider and why?

What are the consequences of your definition?

What type of patient-provider model would best accommodate your definition of rights?

If rights also produce obligations – how can both patients and providers claim professional or personal rights over the same issue?
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1. Given that rights have dominated several healthcare debates, how would you define rights as a healthcare provider and why? (1 Paragraph)

Have you given this some thought?

a. “Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law”.

For example, in the case of R V Cambridge Health Authority Ex Parte B ([1995] Vol. 2 129), Jayne Bowen (also known as child B) was refused treatment of bone marrow transplant for her acute myeloid leukaemic condition because the NHS would not pay for it. Allowing the appeal of the Cambridge Health Authority and supporting the principle that NHS has finite resources, the Court of Appeal concluded that the court was not in a position to decide on the correctness of the difficult and agonizing judgments which Health Authorities had to make, as to how a limited budget was best allocated to the maximum advantage of the maximum number of patients. It is likely that such a decision could be successfully challenged within the definition of Article 2. http://www.freedomtocare.org/page32.htm#human%20rights%20and%20patients

Similarly, many NHS Trusts have an unspoken policy not to resuscitate a patient based on the patient’s age. The recent report of the charity Age Concern (Daily Telegraph, 7th December 1999) that many elderly people are suffering from neglect in hospitals, in that such people are being deprived of food and water, is very alarming. It is not unlikely that such practices will breach both Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention. NHS Trusts are therefore advised to scrutinize their current policies and procedures for resuscitating patients carefully and ensure they do not undermine the Articles of the Convention.

b. “ Everyone’s right to value in health care”
By definition, …