HLSC220 Citizens Have Moral Obligation To Participate In Health Care Assessment Answer

Answer :

Health Care Ethics

Topic: All citizens have the moral obligation to participate in the health care/ medical research

The participation of the citizens in healthcare research in a country is a debatable topic. The study highlights on the point how far it is obligatory and right for the citizens of a country to contribute to the research of health care service. The study will be discussed through the four ethical principles - autonomy, justice, beneficence and non-maleficence respectively. The four principles of ethics will be discussed in the study paper in debatable form and finally, it will be proved through discussion how far a citizen's responsibility is obligatory to take part in health research.

According to Ozoliņš (2015), ethical principles are popular in ethical theory in healthcare service. It is based on the four main principles – autonomy, justice, beneficence and non-maleficence respectively. Autonomy can be said to be the self-rule but it can be described better as a deliberated self-rule and all the moral agents have this attribute. With the help of autonomy, a human being can intend anything and takes the decision to implement the intention to do anything. Hence, Autonomy can be said to be a moral obligation to respect the autonomy of others. In the context of health care, there are many prima facie implications. People should consult with others before they do anything to others in terms of their health benefits. Hence, in the healthcare service, first consent should be taken from people and then anything should be done to them. Atkinset al. (2020) have defined that autonomy is the way of making informed decisions about one’s life for determining whether an action is on one’s best interest or not. In general life, people have not the obligation to keep others' information secret, but in healthcare service, the healthcare professionals have a moral obligation to keep the patients’ information secret from their ethical considerations.

`According to Noroozi et al. (2018), maintaining confidentiality of patient information is the ethical approach and should be respected under the Data and Privacy Act. No sensitive information can be leaked or used without approval of the patient. Moral obligation supported by social expectations displays utilitarian view on medical research by more people. With a promise not to leak outpatients' personal information, healthcare professionals gain the beliefs of the patients in their profession. Thus, keeping confidentiality is not only for the purpose of patients’ autonomy but also for the purpose of helping them. Hence, from the viewpoint of autonomy, every citizen in a country has a moral obligation to make research on the health of the citizens for their good. According to moral principle, people should not deceive others because, insociety, others expect that no one will deceive them and if anyone deceives them their autonomy is infringed. In the healthcare industry, patients should not be deceived, for example, their diagnosed illness should not be forecast in all cases unless the patient wants to be deceived. On the other side, Rennie(2011) has opined that citizen’s obligation to participate is not good prima facie in all the cases. Research, when poorly designed or with the poor knowledge of the researcher or if the proper review, is not done on the research subject then it can give the reverse result. Securing and protecting patient information should be the responsibility and obligation of healthcare facilities.

When it comes to public or societal good, the sharing of information and mutual respect is the key. In fact as per Thomas and McNabb (2019), it is the ethical standard to ensure to abide by moral law while sharing the resources. The consensus is in favor of sharing of resource in public health context. The second attribute is justice. Justice can be said to be a fair obligationto act in terms of the claim. In healthcare service, obligations can be subdivided onto three main heads – distribution of resources, respect the people and accept the moral laws. From the angle of public justification, individuals should participate in health research because the skills, knowledge and products thus developed throughthe individuals contribute to the public good. The valuable resources thus, created from individuals’ participation, can be shared with the present and future generations. Yanget al. (2018) have discussed medial resource sharing. For example, clean air and democratic institutions lead to the public good and on the basis of this; people should not drive cars to maintain the cleanliness in the environment. Failure to follow this principle will lead to blameworthiness on the part of one. Failure to participate means neither harm nor justice, but from the aspect of civic responsibility, citizens should participate in health research so that the present and the future generations can be benefitted.

Offersenet al.(2017) have discussed balancing moral possibilities through healthcare seeking. The citizens have to recognize all the moral concerns for providing health benefits through the proper allocation of resources. In favor of inclined allocation of resources to the needy, allocation of medical resources to people, who need it most, maximises benefits for society. For instance, there can be many conflicts in the field of proper allocation of resources for health care to the people who actually need the healthcare service; when it is not possible to distribute all the resources among the needy people, to maximize the benefits derived from such healthcare, to make a limit to the cost of taxpaying amount for the health insurance schemes. Miller(2016) has defined healthcare as a moral practice. Unbiased and objective view on benefits for maximum outcome considerate towards other citizens. Consensus has been thus, in favor of beneficence and non-maleficence. All of the above criteria can be met with justification for the proper allocation of the healthcare resources but all these cannot be fully met. 

Whenever the citizens of a country try to help others, they harm them to some extent by knowingly or unknowingly. Hence, the citizens should consider the principle of beneficence and non-maleficence together and they should think over the benefits that they can derive from it. Breggin(2016) have discussed the principles to be followed by healthcare providers. Two principles are to be kept in mind by the citizens of a country in regard to health care service for the people so that they can have no obligation of beneficence to others. The obligation of traditional Hippocratic moral will provide benefits to the citizens with the minimum harm- this means that there will be beneficence with non-maleficence. The normal citizens, in order to achieve these objectives, have to make some prima facie obligation on their part. All the citizens of a country have to provide professional benefits to health care users. Ahola-Launonen, (2016) has highlighted social responsibility in people’s healthcare; as the citizens have the basic responsibility to do the welfare of the general people, they cannot provide a non-professional service to the people because non-professional service can harm people. The citizens willing to provide service should train themselves with professional training so that they can be sure that they are offering the patients the net benefits. According to Micek(2016), in this field, the healthcare workers should consider the principle of autonomy because one patient's interest can harm other patients and this is related to an ethical dilemma. In this way, the beneficence and non-maleficence are to be considered by the general people while providing healthcare service to the people of the country. 

Some issues can be drawn by those researchers who believe that participation by the citizens has not been addressed in the right manner. The citizens have to think about their participation from their ethical point of view. Townsend& Luck(2012) has defined an ethical problem is a problem that needs to be overcome before taking nay ethical action. If a question is raised whether an action for healthcare is obligatory or not, some reasons will come in support of the action and some issues will come against the action. It can be said that before application, the moral obligation should be judged well rather than considering them from a moral point of view. One can think that the reasons behind an action should support strongly or compel but strong moral reasons behind an action cannot be necessarily obligatory. An example can be set for this. One can think that he or she will involve himself or herself in healthcare research instead of going to the gym. Padela(2018) has mentioned healthcare practice as both social responsibility and moral obligation. While choosing the former option can be encouraging, it is not obvious that choosing thelatter option is blameworthy. Underlying ethical framework for citizen participation requires the use of moral reasoning behind healthcare actions. Consensus is thus, in favor of moral obligation behind public medical activities. 

Use of moral and ethical decisions is necessary in the context of healthcare as people receiving the healthcare services should be aware of their treatment and hence their consent should be prioritized. According to Mbuthia et al. (2019), consent is necessary as it is considered as an individual human right and everyone should have a say in any treatment done to them. In order to be obligatory morally, only moral reasons behind it is not sufficient, rather social expectations should be there to support that action. Hence, from the above-detailed discussion, it can be said that although there are some chances of harm, research obligation by the citizens is necessary to support the research on healthcare service of both the present and future generation. Hence, the argument how far research participation by the citizens rests on the partly utilitarian assumption: if more citizens participate in health research then more health benefits would be derived in the society and this will be obviously a social benefit. It is an argument whether health research participation is beneficial for the citizens or not. Lyu(2017) has highlighted on Utilitarian ethics. The answer stands on the reality of this question. Implementation in public health care centres and other health clinics should be done to contribute to public health. The majority consensus is to maintain the ethical boundary through approval and consent from the individual.

Over the past few years, there is a growing need for a reconceptualization of the participation of citizens in healthcare research as a moral obligation. This paper will prove that there are certain obligations on the part of the citizens of a country to participate in healthcare research activities but from many points of view, the residents have to think over many points. Research has proved that from one point of view an action can be obligatory for healthcare whereas that action harms another patient. Hence, ethical considerations are necessary in taking a decision with regard to health care participation. Health research has been one of the biggest interests in a country because more participation in health research in the future will increase the knowledge and skills in the field healthcare service and this will definitely contribute to the good of the future generation.