Ethics That I See

For my final blog, I have chosen to write about an ethical issue that I have seen on the news today. I know the news can exaggerate stories; however I still think that this issue has many ethical violations both in healthcare and beyond. With all the economic problems I keep hearing about and all shortages in the budgets around the country I have to ask myself one question. What CEO or manager of any company feels that they can justify giving themselves a raise?! For example, the unemployment rate continues to increase yet some managers and company executives still get raises. I find this extremely disturbing for multiple reasons. First, where is the compassion for your fellow citizen? Do company executives realize that when they fire people they are firing human beings with families? Second, and kind of selfishly, I have to state that many of my co-workers and myself and not seen a raise in well over three years, even though managers and higher-ups get raises. So I guess what I am trying to say through all this rambling is why? I am at a loss. If one CEO would even try to be a tiny bit utilitarianistic and think about the country as a whole I feel that there would be no problem. If he or she gets a $500,000 raise for example and turned it down the company could hire ten more employees and pay them $50,000 each with that money! I know that seems like nothing but if every company and hospital executive did this I feel that it would put a great dent in our economic problem. These people with their new jobs would go out and spend their money and the growth as I see it would be endless. Maybe my idea is a bit utopian in design and more than likely will not happen because let’s be honest, how many people do you know that have turned down a raise? All I can do from my limited position is write about it and hope someone with a greater power then I realizes that something is ethically and morally not right about all of this. I love this country and I know this is how capitalism works, however there is something not right when one man starves while another gets an exorbitant amount of money for putting that starving man in that position.

Ethics in Jail Healthcare

I was very interested to learn that we were going to have a guest speaker in class. I think it adds a nice touch to any class, keeps students interested and just plain changes things up. The speaker we had from the Lake County Jail was quite interesting. It opened my eyes to the ethical issues that can plague a jail, issues that never came to mind when I think health care in a jail. I didn’t think that health care in a jail would go beyond the basic emergency needs of an inmate. I now know that everything from dental to mental health is available to inmates. I also was quite amazed at the level of patient autonomy that was preserved in this limited privacy setting. Quarantine is available for many patients should there be an outbreak of an illness. Privacy is kept to a very high regard and so is control of all medicines and medical supplies in the facility. I cannot say that I myself would be fit or willing to work for a jail, however the way it is run is quite intriguing. The similarities, according to the speaker, seemed very similar to any other medical facility. The only man difference I saw was when there is an emergency medical staff is not the first on the scene. The guards must first secure the area before staff is allowed to proceed in. This seems to present some ethical issues in that it puts the provider before the patient, however in this case I would have to say that it seems like a perfectly acceptable bending of ethical standards.