Question

• Describe why there is such a struggle when addressing end-of-life issues
• What are the differences between allowing a patient to die and physician-assisted suicide?
• Discuss the controversy that can occur when considering a patient's right to know whether a caregiver has AIDS and the caregiver's right to privacy and confidentiality.

Answer 1

Q1. End of life issues comes under very complex ethical, legal and moral dilemma which makes them a real struggle to address. These issues are majorly concerned toward the vital physiologic functions, quality of life, values and beliefs and medical-surgical prognosis of the patients.

Q2. Both physician-assisted suicide and allowing a patient to die differs from each other in terms of degree of involvement and behavior. The assisted suicide enable legal means to be used at the time of patient’s choices. Moreover, the euthanasia or allowing a patient to die involve voluntary injecting lethal amount of pain relieving drugs to the patient and let them die naturally.

Q3. The main controversy is about considering the patient’s right to know the health status of the care provider and the maintenance of privacy and confidentiality of the care provider. Laws and ethics suggest the healthcare facilities to maintain the confidentiality of the care providers. However, patient safety and social well being bring up the ethical dilemma of disclosing the status of the care provider to the patients. According to the American Medical Association, the health and safety of the patients is the priority for the care givers. The identity of the care giver being HIV positive must not be disclosed until and unless a risk of transmission persists. Moreover, the care providers that are at HIV positive are not allowed to be engaged in surgical or any other procedure that can increase the risk of transmission. The identity of the care provider is reveled in such cases when it is mandatory for the care provider to perform a certain surgical procedure on the patient. The ethical and legal perches of informed consent are followed before allowing the care giver to perform surgical practices over the patient.