Australian Health Law:


 


Introduction/Overview of the Case


            Accordingly, health care system and policies varies from one country to another and each country has their own rules and regulations when it comes to patient care. Health care policies and laws are provided for the protection of the healthcare professionals and most especially the protection of the rights of the patients. In Australia, the government has been able to provide healthcare laws to be followed by the healthcare professionals at all cost.  Primarily, this paper will analyse a scenario and determine the possible healthcare laws which have not been followed by the healthcare professionals in the given scenario.


            The case was about Mrs Smyth a 75 year old woman who was admitted to St Always hospital in Victoria for operation on (L) hip replacement.  In this case, there are some situations which show an obvious malpractice of the healthcare professionals. For this scenario, the obvious health law which have not been followed includes negligence, medical malpractice, and informed consent.


 


Negligence


            According to the Australian Health Law, health care professionals and professionals such as dentists, surgeons, doctors, nurses and others must give treatment and advice which is in line with a reasonable standard of health care.  The law mentioned that if the health care professionals fail to take reasonable care for the patient, then these professionals have breached their responsibility of care to the patient. Further, it is also mentioned that the failure to take reasonable care, in situations where the healthcare professionals could or should have predicted that their actions could cause any injury to the patient, this is called medical negligence (Solicitor Advice, 2008). The following are some examples of treatment which may be noted as negligent (this depends on the situations of the case).


·         failure to diagnose a condition;


·         failure to give the appropriate treatment for the condition;


·         failure to refer to a specialist;


·         delay in diagnosis;


·         failure to advise of risks associated with treatment;


·         failure to perform surgery with reasonable care and skill;


·         failure to report correctly on test results;


·         Failure to provide post-operative care with reasonable care and skill.


 


In the case of Mrs Smyth, there is some obvious medical negligence which can be noted. From the start of the treatment until the time that she had another injury.


·         failure to advise of risks associated with treatment


At the start of the case, Mrs Smyth have been telling her doctors about her worries on the operation because of the event that happened in the past with her husband which she don’t want to happen to her.  Provided with these worries of the patient, Dr. Bold decided not to tell her the risks of the operation and only provide a general overview of the case.  In this case, another health law has been neglected which is the premise of the informed consent (ANHMRC, 2008).


Accordingly, the informed consent policy is a legitimate context that applied to all healthcare professionals. This law lies on the premise that each individual of adult years and have a sound might has the right to determine what shall be done with his own body (Liang, 1996). In this case, the issue of informed has not been considered by Dr Bold as he did not provide the risks of the operation for Mrs Smyth and he did it based on his own discretion.


Another issues of medical negligence can be considered and this time with the case of Dr. Toms. Dr. Toms like Dr. Bold has not been able to provide the risks of the operation to Mrs Smyth considering that she keeps on telling the doctors her worries and feelings. The incidents of Dr Bold and Dr Toms are similar and they have not been able to help the patient about the informed consent to be filled up.  Furthermore, Nurse Pim and Nurse Flyn have also their share of negligence in terms of informed consent, since they did not assist the patient appropriately with reasonable skill and care.


 


·         failure to perform surgery with reasonable care and skill


 


Another issue that can be considered is the failure to perform the surgery with reasonable care and skill. In this case, it can be said that Dr Bold has not been able to conduct the operation with reasonable care and skill as he started the surgery without checking firsts whether the consent form have been filled up correctly by the patient. He continued the operation without the consent form and the idea which hip to be replaced. This situation is very risky for the patient since the absent of the consent form is a malpractice and its absence might cause sever injury for the patient.


·         failure to provide post-operative care with reasonable care and skill


After operations, health care professionals have the responsibility to provide post-operative care with reasonable skill and care. Nurses are usually the most involved healthcare professionals in post-operative care. They are responsible for assisting the patient after the operations. However, there are evidences that show that there are still nurses who are failing to apply what is recognized in the care they provide with their patients (Laughlin et al, 2000). In this case, it can be said that nurses in the St Always Hospital failed ot provide proper post-operative care as Nurse Green did not assist Mrs Smyth with reasonable care. Nurse Green has left Mrs Smyth in the shower room alone and makes the latter wait for her.  It is her duty to assist her at all times, because of her condition and Nurse Green did not do it. The negligence is in the part of Nurse Green.


These results on added injury and pain for Mrs Smyth and Nurse Green reported the incident putting all the blame on the patients as she noted that “The patient tried to get herself back into bed and did not wait for assistance from nursing staff and then fell beside the bed. Attended by staff, doctor notified and an X-ray ordered.”   Such report can be considered as another malpractice and negligence since the healthcare professional did not disclose the whole incident and the reason why the patient had the injury.


With this situation, Mrs Smyth has undertaken another operation, and with this incident she developed complications and suffered a stroke that leads her to end up to a nursing home placement.


 


Analysis and Discussion


The healthcare professionals are responsible for treating the patients in accordance with the law and policies, in this case the Australian Health law.  They have the duty to respect the rights of the patient and they have the duty to ensure informed consent. Under which, the healthcare professionals has the core accountability to let the patients be involved in the medical treatment processes.


            The issues of medical negligence has been obvious in the given case, the entire healthcare professionals who have been involved with Mrs Smyth can be considered to be involved in medical negligence. The main objective of being healthcare professionals is to assist individuals in the achievement of an optimal level of wellness and provide respect to the choices and desires of the patient and this has not been considered by Dr Bold and Dr Tom during their treatment with Mrs Smyth.  In the given case, it can be said that the doctors and other healthcare professionals involved have breached their duty of care by not implementing proper clinical procedure and practice.             In this case, proper justice should be given to the patients and those who are involved in this medical negligence and malpractice must be given proper punishment. Because of this negligence, the hip problem of Mrs Smyth had worsen and lead to other severe problems that makes her stay at the nursing home like w her husband.


 


Conclusion


Healthcare professionals are expected provide effective and efficient healthcare assistance at all costs.  Emergence of the role of healthcare professionals has tended to occur where a clear need arises. In this regard, nurses must be able to have enough and sufficient knowledge about their responsibilities especially in managing and caring patients like in the case of Mrs Smyth.  It is said that effective practice must be secured, specifically in rendering their tasks in assisting patients undergoing operations. As mentioned, monitoring, and proper administration must be given emphasis to ensure that this responsibility is done accordingly. In addition, healthcare professionals must ensure that they do their duties and obligations in accordance to the law and policies this is to ensure that the patient will receive reasonable care and to avoid further injuries like what happened with Mrs Smyth. In order to solve the issue, Mrs Smyth’s family must be aware of their rights and file a complaint in the Australian court to give justice to what happened with Mrs Smyth,


 


Reference


Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (2008). General guidelines for medical practitioners on providing information to patients. Canberra: NHMRC 2008. Online available at www.health.gov.au:80/nhmrc/publications/fullhtml/cp60.htm. Retrieve August 26, 2008


 


Liang BA (1996): What needs to be said? Informed consent in the context of spinal anaesthesia. Journal of Clinical Anaesthesia, 8:525–52


 


Solicitor Advice on medical negligence (2008). Online available http://solicitoradvice.com/medicalnegligence.htm. Retrieve August 26, 2008.



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