Could Pro Bono Work Help Fix The Healthcare System?

Among the several occupations world-wide lies the physician who is generally a human medical specialist and the lawyer who is a professional in the field of law engaging in lawsuits and other legal matters. For years, the latter have always engaged in free practices in their field. That is, they are known to offer on several occasions free or subsidized legal services in the public service i.e. free client representation and legal advice. This is termed as “pro bono”. The doctors do offer voluntary services in form of medical camps. However, there is no clear requirement that they do so. Medical services are crucial in every community it is therefore necessary that doctors offer pro bono services.
Apart from offering services to the needy in the community, it is also beneficial to the practitioners. When lawyers engage in pro bono practice, they for example get to save innocent people against unfair conviction, ensure that justice takes place and at the same time get to expand their markets and polish their skills. This is not any different in the case of physicians. First and foremost, it is simply the right thing to do. For example, in the famous Heinz dilemma, when the physician could not let Heinz get a drug for the dying wife at half the price and later on pay the remaining half, he was not doing the right thing and was being inhumane. Worse, Heinz had done all in his capacity to get as much money he could for the drug that was coasting ten times higher than the manufacturing cost. Well, this physician would at least have accepted the half price Heinz had so as to save a life as it would have been the right thing to do. In a recent free medical camp, many people were turned off due to lack of medical personnel to attend to t...

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...rcome by the national government creating a law requiring volunteers to take responsibility for their actions. This would ensure that volunteers act in the best interest of the patient.
To conclude, bona fide practices by physicians may be both good and bad. However, it still remains that the gift of life is the most valuable thing on earth and physicians should hence consider this first before some other things like money. They are not only the patients alone who benefit anyway, but even the physicians themselves and what they make in future may result from such generous acts that attracted other people. Caution must however be taken as it is not an absolutely good practice having its own hiccups as seen above.

Works Cited

Lazarus, David. “Mandating Pro Bono Work Could Help Fix Healthcare System.” Los Angeles Times. 16 August 2009. Accessed 24 April 2014. Web.