The Ethical Problem of Hospital - Essay Example

a). The ethical problem description Until of recent, Enron has been working with senior management in a public hospital and he has decided to leave the public hospital and started to work in an eye company that is applying to be a general hospital over a number of aspects of treatment of the patients with eye complications. To date, such task has been performed exclusively by the public hospital and, therefore, the government is seeking to transfer the treatment to a private sector. The state has a full responsibility of transferring the medical services to the private company. The employer asked Enron to lead the team in the application from public to private sector. Enron’s boss is cognizant that when I was working at the public hospital, Enron worked closely with the senior management of the hospital. Additionally, he was familiar with a number of both the hospital management and the government department of health. Following my experience in working in the public hospital is aware of the critical issues in the transfer the work from the public hospital to a private hospital. His firm pays large bonuses to employees who successfully move from the general hospital to private. Additionally, the accountants collude with the management in window dressing the financial statements to portray profits being generated by the hospital when it is not the case. The top management director had some information regarding the fall of the shares in the stock exchange. The manager made a point of selling the shares before disclosing such information to the public and respective investors over the future fall in the shares of the public hospital shares. b). Why the problem is ethical, and the issues involved in the problem It determination of the ethical dilemma it is necessary to determine the reason Enron was chosen is because of the experience and knowledge he had in the medical services of the eye patients and the familiarity he had with the senior management over some time with the government and the public hospital. The ethical requirements demand that there should be nothing like threats that might hinder the competency, professionalism, integrity or objectivity of the professional. In the above case, there exist are a number of threats to professionalism. There is a threat of self-interest (Williams, 2007). In the above case, it is well stated that the management has an offer of paying Enron a handsome amount after accepting the demands of the senior management. This raises the ethical dilemma. Another threat that is being portrayed is the threat of familiarity. It is clear that Enron has been working with the senior manager for some time. He is, therefore in an ethical dilemma to choose whether to decline the issue of carrying out the team management or not. There is another ethical issue whereby the management participated in the insider trading. It is clear that the management director was aware of the future behavior of the hospital shares in the stock exchange market. The manager had secret information regarding the fall of the shares of the hospital. Without disclosing this information as it may unfavorably affect the firm. He made a sole decision in trading of the company shares. These shares generated a higher share capital than it was anticipated. This is unethical as the corporate governance demand full disclosure of the sensitive information regarding the shares in the stock exchange. There is another critical issue of window dressing whereby the company colluded with the management in the manipulation of the financial statements. For instance, the accountants doctored the profit figures by understating the expenses and overstate the revenue generation. This was done courtesy of portraying an image that the hospital was profitable and had unforeseen stay in the industry. This indeed is an ethical dilemma as Enron indifferent between upholding the ethical principles and taking the advantage of the being bribed to keep quiet on the matter. c). what the organization did in resolving the problem The organization forced the organization coerced Enron and his colleagues to work as per their wishes. After employees had declined, from the issue of compromising the ethical principles, they were given an option of fleeing their job. This was so because their decision is final and whoever contravenes is fired with an immediate effect. Due to this threat a number of the employees had to resign as they could not tolerate the issue of unethical codes of conduct. The few employees who were of the opinion of condoning such had to a bid by the decision of the management hence carrying out the issue of transferring from the public to private sector. The detriment to those who declined the offer was that they never secured their job again as they were replaced with an immediate effect. Why this approach is not ethical According to the corporate principles, a professional should never be threatened as this is inconsistent and will lead to a corporate failure. They are supposed be left free to carry out their professionalism independently. In the above case, it is clear that the manager coerced the employees together with Enron to work based on their interest rather than the interests of the firm. It is well stipulated that a profession will not be fired on the grounds of not tolerating with unethical issues (Sahay et al., 2009). A professional will only be fired on the grounds of misconduct or operating inconsistently to the ethical codes of the standards. The violation of the following rules can lead to a profession to leave the job failure to adhere to integrity, being subjective rather than being objective, acting unprofessional and lack of knowledge, skills and competence in the field of specialization. d). My approach to resolving the problem The method that should be used is the threats and safeguard model. The model uses the judgment to decide how a dilemma should be resolved. This is done by recognizing the threats compliance with the fundamental principles and assessment of the safeguards to solve the threats. The model involves the following steps. The first step is the identification and reorganization of the ethical issues. For instance, in this case, Enron was chosen because of his competence, knowledge and expertise in the medical service services of eye patients and the familiarity with the senior management (Kälvemark et al.,2011). There is a threat to an ethical requirement to respect the confidentiality information to the previous employer. As a professional, one should not disclose confidential information obtained from the prior job for the benefit of the other employees. On the other hand, he has an ethical duty to help other employees to achieve these goals. The amount of significant of the threat depends on the amount of confidential information will be used in carrying out the work. If there is no threat of confidentiality, then there is no problem. However, in this case, it is most likely that Enron will be using the acquired information from the previous employer yet this information should be kept confidential. Enron is required to discuss the ethical problem with the organization. If the employer is sympathetic to the ethical issues, then he is likely to agree and thus should not be asked to leave the team that applies to do the work (Christakis & Feudtner, 2013). Another colleague should be appointed to lead the team in this action. However, he might agree to be involved in the group where they can use his experience and knowledge where there is no threat to confidentiality. If this is so, he will be working to provide legitimate interests of the employer without any threats to compliance with financial, ethical principles. e). Why my approach is ethical and how it can work in practice The approach is vital and pertinent to the work in practice because it takes into account the existence of a number of threats to professionals or employees. It recognizes the ethical issues that such individual face while measuring the compliance with the ethical standards. It is noted that the ethical standards provide a framework within which individuals should be practicing their professionalism (Miller & Selgelid, 2010). Some issues might arise in the firms that are not ethical issues but threatening. Since such issues are inconsistent to the ethical codes of conduct, they cannot afford justification for being called ethical problems. Additionally, the model gives out a step-wise solution of the problem at hand. The safeguards are provided by the model that includes the provision of additional information courtesy of reduction of the threats to the compliance with the fundamental ethical principles. The model advocates the elimination of the threats to reduce the insignificant level. It finally provides a long-term solution to the prevailing problem in the working station. It is more applicable than the mirror test model as the model does not call upon the individual to judge him/her by determining what is right and what is wrong. Instead, it subjects the behavior/actions of the individuals to the standards that were earlier on determined to be ethical codes of conducts and violation of such will lead to a consequence (Garber, 2008). References Christakis, D. A., & Feudtner, C. (2013). Ethics in a short white coat: the ethical dilemmas that medical students confront. Academic Medicine. doi:10.1097/00001888-199304000-00003 Garber, P. R. (2008). The ethical dilemma. Amherst, MA: HRD Press. Kälvemark, S., Höglund, A. T., Hansson, M. G., Westerholm, P., & Arnetz, B. (2011). Living with conflicts-ethical dilemmas and moral distress in the health care system. Social Science & Medicine, 3, 94. doi:10.1016/S0277-9536(03)00279-X Miller, S., & Selgelid, M. J. (2010). Ethical and philosophical consideration of the dual-use dilemma in the biological sciences. New York: Springer. Sahay, A., Gould, J., & Barwise, P. (2009). New interactive media: experts’ perceptions of opportunities and threats for existing businesses. European Journal of Marketing, 2, 37. doi:10.1108/03090569810224029 Williams, S. (2007). Conflict of interest: The ethical dilemma in politics. Aldershot, Hants: Gower Read More