The Snow Storm Lawsuit - Research Paper Example

In the given case study, because of heavy snow storm, many hospital staffs who were working for a no-profit community hospital providing patient care called out from work on the 3-11 and 11-7 shifts which resulted in damages including loss of life to patients due to lack of nursing staff available during that period. The families of these patients sued the hospital on behalf of their deceased relatives. This paper briefly analyses legal, ethical, professional and business considerations involved in this case.

The first legal consideration involved in this case is that the hospital management failed to provide necessary protection to the patients admitted in the hospital. It is the duty of the hospital management to ensure adequate medical care to all the patients admitted in the hospital at any cost. By calling out the nursing staff, the management sacrificed the interests of the patients. The hospital should have taken adequate precautionary measures to counter the problems associated with snow storm as snow storm was not a new thing to them.

The patients who were not able to move out of hospital left unnoticed in the hospital till the snow storm ends which is definitely illegal. The hospital management played with the lives of patients and definitely they were guilty of neglecting the interests of the patients. The second legal consideration in this case is that whether the hospital staff could be forced to work in such drastic conditions. Life is precious to all whether it belongs to the patients or to the hospital staffs. Under such circumstances, can the hospital authorities pressurise the hospital staff to work?

The third legal consideration in this case is that one patient lost his life because of incorrect medication. Only one nurse was agreed to work during this disaster period and she should have heavy workload during this period because of lack of other medical staffs available at that time in that hospital. It is quiet possible that she might have