Question

You are the head of a small aid agency in the Congo. The mission of your agency is to provide health services for refugees who have fled the various civil wars in the region. In recent years, you have worked with a number of nongovernmental organization agencies, such as C.A.R.E., Doctors Without Borders, and the Christian Children’s Fund. Your agency focuses on giving intensive help to small communities. You are now working in a camp of fifty people. Because of a peculiar parasite in the water that destroys the cornea of the eye, ten people in the camp have gone blind; half of them are children. Except for their inability to see, their health is reasonably good, given the conditions of the camp. You contact Doctors Without Borders and they tell you that they will have two ophthalmologists in the area next week, but that the only thing they can do for the people who have gone blind is to give them cornea transplants. The next day, Doctors Without Borders contacts you again and says that they have been contacted by a representative of an African government that is willing to trade 10 corneas in exchange for food. The corneas come from political prisoners ( they committed no crime other than to oppose the government) who have been executed, so that the government can sell organs and body parts in exchange for food and money, so that they can continue their control over their population. Doctors Without Borders says that you have 24 hours to decide and that the African government has other people who will accept the corneas in trade. If you accept the corneas, you will be supporting the illegal trade in body parts, like corneas, and organs. And the continued oppression and murder of innocent people. If you do not accept the corneas, 10 people will go blind. Who are the stakeholders? What would be your decision? How did you make the decision?

Answer 1

Who are the Stakeholders:

Stakeholders for any organization are the parties who are somehow connected to the organization and have interest attached in its working properly. It becomes the duty of the company to take care of the stakeholders by working ethically and taking decisions by considering everyone associated with it.

In the above case, following are the stakeholders:

• The employees who are working with the small aid agency to help the refugees.
• The people who are admitted in the camp and to whom services are being rendered by the agency.
• The society where the agency is located as its working will affect the status of the society and the people living in it.

Decision taken:

• Being the head of the agency, I would take the decision of not buying corneas from the African Government.
• As agreeing to buy corneas from African Government would by unethical and illegal as well, as this would promote organ trading.
• The decision was taken after consulting other agencies across localities for buying the corneas.
• The decision was also taken after providing ample aid to the patients and conducting their tests, which would prove that the operation can wait for few days.