Substandard Patient Care - Admission/Application Essay Example

 Substandard Patient Care Most of the countries experiencing lack of quality health care professionals in their health organizations and hence they are forced to appoint substandard professionals in their health care system. Lot of casualties has been reported from many countries because of the careless services offered to the patients by health care professionals. In fact human life is the most important thing in the world and hence it should be given extreme value. Since no science or technology so far succeeded in developing a human life artificially, extreme care must be taken while dealing with patients. Sizable numbers of Americans are harmed as a result of medical errors. Two studies of large samples of hospital admissions, one in New York using 1984 data and another in Colorado and Utah using 1992 data, found that the proportion of hospital admissions experiencing an adverse event, defined as injuries caused by medical management, were 2.9 and 3.7 percent,1 respectively. The proportion of adverse events attributable to errors (i.e., preventable adverse events) was 58 percent in New York, and 53 percent in Colorado and Utah (Errors in Health Care: A Leading Cause of Death and Injury) I have a friend whose father was “killed” due to the carelessness of health care professionals. My friend has admitted his father to one of the major hospitals in his town because of high fever and head ache. The doctor has asked to admit the patient in Substandard Patient Care 2 the hospital for further checkups. He has confirmed that the patient was suffering from pneumonia and hence need extreme care. So the doctor has asked the patient to stay back in the hospital till the disease cures completely. The doctor has asked my friend to provide enough healthy foods like milk and fruit juices to the patient since he was treating the patient with powerful antibiotics. My friend obeyed the doctor’s order and he has taken extreme care in providing healthy foods to his father. One morning, the patient has developed suffocation and cough and the doctor asked the head nurse to suck some phlegm from the throat/lungs using a tube. The head nurse has asked another trainee nurse to do this act. The trainee nurse has brought all the equipments needed to suck out the phlegm. My friend has told the trainee nurse that the patient has taken food just now only. But the trainee nurse said that don’t worry, that’s not a problem. She has inserted the tube through the mouth of the patient and the patient started to vomit. Most of the food he has consumed as breakfast has come out and some portions of the food gone into the lungs also. The nurse has removed the tube and rushed to the duty doctor to inform him about the serious stage of the patient. Most of the duty doctors came to the patient room and they transferred the patient to Intensive Care Unit where he met with the reality of death. The above incident is a real incident happened in one hospital which shows the importance of quality health care required to patients of critical stages. A quality health care system will never approach a patient of that caliber in such a careless way. We can see lot of draw backs in the treatment of this patient. First of all, the duty doctor who has ordered to suck out the phlegm was not present at the patient’s room while the trainee Substandard Patient Care 3 nurse was doing her exercises. Secondly he could not ensure the presence of at least the head nurse at the time of sucking out the phlegm. All the responsible professionals have approached this patient in a casual manner. For them it was just like doing something as part of their profession; Nothing more than that. But they failed to keep the ethics in their profession. In my opinion the doctor should have done this phlegm sucking process under his supervision only. Moreover he should have transferred the patient to the ICU before starting the phlegm suction. The doctor could have informed the relatives of the patient that food should not be provided to the patient until the suction is over. The duty head nurse also shown lot of carelessness in her profession. Since the doctor has advised her to do the suction, she should have done it herself rather than giving the opportunity to the trainee nurse. Moreover if the trainee nurse was not confident enough to do the suction she should have informed it to the head nurse. “Proponents of medical malpractice claim that it compensates people injured by medical negligence, exposes or rids the medical profession of incompetent or careless practitioners, and deters substandard care” (Troyen A.) But they are keeping a blind eye towards the fact that nobody can return the life of a person who is killed due to medical negligence. If I was the supervisor of the health care system where this incident has happened, I will definitely take actions against all the three, the doctor, the head nurse and the trainee nurse. I will never assign critical responsibilities to the trainee nurses. I would ensure that the correct professionals are at the correct places all the time. Substandard Patient Care 4 Moreover I will ensure that everybody is performing their assigned tasks well and if I feel somebody lacking the required abilities of their profession, I will not hesitate to fire them out of the system. Conclusion Casualties due to irresponsible health care system have been increasing every day. Health professionals are taking their profession lightly and the ethical standards in medical profession is diminishing every day. Lack of quality health care professionals is a big problem, many countries are facing. Severe punishments should be enforced in medical profession for carelessness. Considering the value of human life, only quality workers should be appointed in hospitals and other medical institutions. There should be a strict screening process while selecting candidates for studying the medical science. The admissions to medical colleges and nursing colleges must be strictly made on the basis of merit alone. Substandard Patient Care 5 Works Cited 1. Errors in Health Care: A Leading Cause of Death and Injury, Retrieved on March 5, 2009 from 2. Troyen A.Brennan, Relation between malpractice claims and adverse events due to negligence: results of the Harvard Medical Practice study III, Retrieved on March 5, 2009 from Read More