Ethical Issues In Rural Healthcare

Within the scope of healthcare in the United States there have been several analytical aspects that involved the delivery of care to individual that live in rural areas.
Many have had problems receiving adequate care especially when it deals with oncology service. The reasons why there is a lack of service within this area of healthcare is due to many indignant individuals that live in this area do not have adequate transportation to go to the local hospitals and the fact that they do not have and oncologist on staff at the facility within there neighborhood. The article below will elaborate on some issues that many medical facilities face when dealing with problems such as a lack of justice and coverage when it pertains to abiding by policy

standards.
Overview of Rural Hospitals
In 1988 RCOP grew from being a one program facility to an abundance of approximately five programs that are in operation of the same amount of hospitals.

In regards to the facilities most of these rural areas provide service such as cancer care with a team of two -three oncologist, two nurse practitioners and a clinical travel nurse for each of these five sites. Even though they have these facilities in place within these areas they still have issues when it comes to providing adequate affordable quality care to these constituents.
Issues
Within this article, I have notices that there are several ethical issues which include, but are subject to justice, medical competency, confidentiality and conflicts of personal professional boundaries. Per the authors justice pertains to distributing healthcare equitably which involves proving services in order of need rather than if they can obtain the services (Ex. geographical and financial barriers). In some rural communities’ health care, may be hours away and possess less physician coverage than urbanized areas (Lyckholm, Hackney & Smith,

2001).

Since there is a lack of transportation within these areas it makes it difficult for the elderly and it could cause them to have a lapse in coverage causing them not to receive or obtain their allotted serves. If this sort of things continues to be on the rise these facilities will have no under choice, but to close their doors for lack of funding and patient coverage. To keep this sort of thing from, becoming a reality many healthcare staff employees will volunteer their time to go and see provide services by use of their own transportation so that some if not all the people within this rural area will receive some sort of service.
Second, there is Medical Competency is another issue that individuals face in rural areas especially when it involves oncology services, because they tend to lack in specialty care. This tends to make physicians feel pressured or forced to provide care, including procedures which they perform infrequently or are beyond their level of expertise, especially if the closest large medical center is approximately 3 to 4 hours away (Lyckholm, Hackney & Smith, 2001).
Finally, they must deal with confidentiality and conflicts of personal boundaries from friends and neighbors, since it is a small community each one within that are tend to know each other’s business.

A perfect example of this is when the patient asked the doctor not to put her diagnosis on her chart , because she felt as though her sister-in law would notify her brother of her results even though this would be unethical on the doctors part and against everything that he stands for to eliminate pertinent information from the chart the patient felt and though she had the right to ask due to everyone within that area that eventually someone would see her chart and divulge her personal

information.

In conclusion people in rural areas are very private individuals although they are in a neighborhood where everyone knows each other when it pertains to their health they would rather ask the doctor to alleviate or lie about their condition for fear of someone finding out the results of their medical care. A different scenario of this same issue pertains to confidentiality and the concern for overstepping one’s boundaries, whenever it deals with the health and welfare of a patient. Your priority is for their safety this includes respecting their wishes to a certain extinct unless they are asking you to omit or fraudulently place information in their medical chart. This is not only unethical it against the HIPPA regulations and could cause that doctor or physician to lose their license.
In regards to the aspects of health under no circumstance is it ethically admissible for a physician to eliminate any information off of a patient’s chart or to divulge personal information to friends or neighbors this should be left up to the patient and the reasoning for putting information on a patient’s chart is to show what issue they are having and a record of what treatments they are being given in case of a recurring situation. As for oncology services if a patient is being treated for cancer this gives the doctor notations at to what treatments they are already receiving and how often they receive them.