Changes in capacity and dicision making Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Changes in capacity and dicision making - Essay Example Every surrogate decision maker appointed by the patient or by the court or selected automatically, have the responsibility of representing the wishes of the grown up individual and take into consideration the patients values. Health care practitioners also have the responsibility of honoring these values and wishes as they are. When the wishes and values of the patient are not known by the surrogate, he/she should be guided based on the patient’s best interest (Buchanan et al. 1998). Capacity assessment plays a very important role in determining when a patient cannot make decisions; hence they should be made on his behalf. This has a big implication for the clinic health professionals and civil freedoms effects of the patient. The process of determining the patients capacity is very important and can have serious implication to the patient’s life or even health, it can also make the person offering the treatment to lose his/her career/job. A health practitioner can get wrong information about a patient’s health that he/she gets from the patient who is mentally impaired. When such information is used, it may end up endangering the life of the patient. It is, therefore, crucial to adequate capacity assessment to be carried out. In this scenario, there is a conflict between the father and the daughter hence an ethical decision-making will be required by the healthcare executive. The decision makers, in this case, must take into account ethical, justice to parties involved, autonomy, beneficence, & nonmaleficence. They should also take consideration their professional and organizational moral principles codes and standards. The bioethicist should come up with a proper and sound decision-making framework. A mechanism that comprise of ethics committees, services for consulting, and policies that are written. An official way with guidelines should be established to help in the decision-making process. However, given that the patient