Draft Essay

Healthcare and Nursing - Social Justice in Healthcare Distribution

Practicing adequate social justice while distribution of healthcare funds amongst the

most deserving and needy cases, is an arduous task. While distributing these funds, it is

essential to take a paradigm view of the situation, and then making decisions without

any social or racial bias. In the given scenario, looking at all the given cases and making

a decision regarding which patient deserves to be saved; was an eye-opening

experience for me indeed.

In my opinion, patient C deserves to receive the funds. My rationale behind this decision

is pretty logical and simple. In case of patient A, the fact that the patient is quite old and

has already lived 70 years of his life, makes it hard for me to choose him. The patient

has already exceeded the average global lifespan (Brockmann, 2002), and investing

one million dollars in saving his life would leave me regretful for the younger patients in

need of funds. In case of patient B, the life expectancy of the toddler is only until

teenage; which means that the funds would not be well-invested here. Now, in case of

patient D, the patient is going to be completely dependent on the hepatitis drug given to

him. This means that patient D would be able to live normally only until three years, until

the funds will last. The expenditure of the hepatitis drug as described in the case is

30,000 dollars per month. Hence, there is going to be no backup or guarantee for the

hospital to ensure that it has saved a life successfully in the longer run or not. Now,

lastly, in case of patient E who is a premature baby, the chances of survival at best are

only 20%. Moreover, the total sum of the baby’s 12-month stay is going to exceed the

hospital’s currently available funds. Hence, in case of patient E, the hospital funds will
not be well-invested, as the survival chances of the baby are meagre. Moreover, the

extra care and necessary medicines for the premature baby are going to mount to a

bigger sum than a million dollars.

This left me with patient C who is a mother of two, and needs to undergo a bone

marrow transplant costing 750,000 dollars. This amount surely falls under the hospital’s

budget. Apart from that, the mother of two also needs post-surgery care which will

amount to roughly 500,000 dollars including the medicines and visits. The hospital can

grant the patient C the remaining amount i.e. 250,000 dollars to the woman for her

post-surgery care, so that she can continue to avail the services until the hospital has

the next round of funds available. The major reason behind my choice of choosing

patient C for the hospital fund is the fact that in case of successful surgery, one life is

going to be saved for sure without any doubts. The surgery will allow the woman to lead

a normal life with her children. Furthermore, the woman may be planning for another

baby soon. This means that the hospital will become responsible for saving multiple

lives in this case.

While making this decision, I understood the situation of the hospital administration and

stakeholders, who have to make routinely decisions regarding saving lives of people.

Moreover, I also understood the fact that any sort of conflict of interest and biasedness

needs to be avoided while making such potential decisions. One must put aside caste,

color, and creed during decision making and policy making in healthcare systems

(Baicker & Staiger, 2005). Only then, we can claim our healthcare systems to be truly

reliable and transparent.

References

Baicker, K., & Staiger, D. (2005). Fiscal shenanigans, targeted federal health care

funds, and patient mortality. The quarterly journal of economics, 120(1), 345-386.

Brockmann, H. (2002). Why is less money spent on health care for the elderly than for

the rest of the population? Health care rationing in German hospitals. Social science &

medicine, 55(4), 593-608.