Criminal Law, Healthcare Ethics And Workplace Safety: A Comprehensive Overview

Criminal law and its relation to major offenses

• Civil law relates to the resolution of conflicts between two institutions or persons. Example: civil law relates to ownership, income, accommodation, separation, child custody, etc.

Criminal law relates to crimes perpetrated against the community. Examples: homicide, rape, theft, abuse, and other major offenses (Watkin, 2017).

• There is a necessity to eliminate preventable hazards of societal damage. Evolving paramedic services and broadening the spectrum of action may lead to certainly increased dangers to society. Mortality rates are severe, and harassment is more prevalent.
• Registration will help to ensure the security of public wellness, with the ultimate purpose of safeguarding the community. They do this by creating regulatory criteria, professional obligations, regulations, and practice norms, all of which work collectively to provide the criteria for efficient and secure conduct (ahpra.gov.au, 2018).
• Unsatisfactory professional performance indicates that the professional’s understanding, competence, judgment, or the treatment practiced is below the quality generally anticipated of a healthcare professional of a similar extent of expertise.
• If a professional is proven to have violated the code of conduct, the Health Care Complaints Commission can issue a suspension order (Townsend & Luck, 2019).
• The information needed is:
• the victim’s identification;
• the manner, location, and date of the victim’s demise; and
• further pertinent material near the conclusion of the testimony.
• One may only release sensitive facts for the community purpose without the client’s agreement, or if permission is refused, if the advantages to a person or community exceed the community and victim’s interests in retaining the facts private (themdu.com, 2021).
• Employer regulatory proceedings.
• The intrusion of fees or other repercussions.
• Administrative actions under the regulating legislation for healthcare practitioners.
• Judicial action is taken against the individual to recover harm (settlement) (Allan, 2020).
• Content that is freely available to the community.
• Details are given by the relevant authority before the execution of the contract.
• Details are obtained by the “recipient” from a 3rd person who is not required to retain the details privately.
• Maintaining privacy can lead to more successful interaction among doctors and clients, which is critical for the effectiveness of treatment, increased independence, and avoiding financial damage, shame, and prejudice (Tariq & Hackert, 2018).
• Ambulances must be connected to a coordinated helpdesk to provide a sufficient quantity of ambulances depending on demographic and time to treatment. Only ambulances that have been recognized and registered shall be utilized for transfer.
• The health impact for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individuals is 2.3 times higher than for non-Indigenous Australians. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individuals have greater rates of cognitive discomfort and persistent illnesses (health.gov.au, 2021).
• The rights are:

1. Access – To medical services and treatments.
2. Safety – Receive health treatment that is both safe and of high quality.
3. Respect – Treated with dignity and respect.
4. Partnership – Engage in open, honest conversation.
5. Information – Detailed information regarding the ailment.
6. Privacy – Maintain security and confidentiality of information and health.
7. Give Feedback – Deliver feedback without changing how one is treated.

• Autonomy- A basic reminder that every individual is valuable and should not be exploited as a means to a goal for the benefit of others.

Beneficence- The duty to provide benefit to specific patients.

Justice- Achieves a more equitable dispersion of health consequences in communities.

Veracity- Healthcare practitioners must be truthful to clients.

Non-maleficence- Even if the patient demands it, a health care practitioner should operate in such a way that he does no damage.

Confidentiality- Client details exchanged with a therapist during therapy are not shared with others.

Role-fidelity- Meeting the realistic expectations of the patient, such as being polite, knowledgeable, and professional.

Professional boundaries- Limitations in a caregiver’s engagement that enable for a secure, therapeutic interaction among the caregiver and the client.

• Healthcare personnel have a legal and ethical commitment to protect the individuals in their service. When these jobs are ignored, people suffer. An example of ethical behaviour or responsibility is performing the correct thing for the patient (Carman, 2016).
• The requirement to select among two or more ethically right choices or between equally terrible paths of conduct, where one choice precludes the selection of the other. Example: Providing a lower-quality item to a client for profits (Pozgar, 2019).
• Clinicians have the constitutional authority to refuse to perform a service they feel is unlawful. Nevertheless, they must make this explanation, as well as the reality that the legislation is uncertain, apparent to patients.
• Companies, self-employed people, and others in control of workplaces are responsible for ensuring the safety and welfare of children to the maximum degree feasible. Employees must also function in a safe manner so that no children are harmed. 
• A child who has been determined to be “Gillick competent” can prohibit their parents from reading their health records. As a result, unless permission is obvious, medical professionals will not disclose the clinical data of the child (Griffith, 2016).
• The National Code seeks to tighten governance of unregistered medical professionals throughout all States and Territories, as well as to allow for the common acceptance of ban orders.
• In both people and organizations, unethical behavior has major repercussions. One may lose the work and image, the firm’s integrity may suffer, overall morale and efficiency may suffer, or the conduct may result in large fines and/or economic loss (De Cremer & Vandekerckhove, 2017).
• 1. The importance of continuing education in healthcare cannot be overstated. Example: benefits include highly skilled employees, high staff retention, improved patient outcomes, and so on.
  2. Using e-learning to solve time and cost concerns. Examples: E-learning enables caregivers to train more efficiently.
  3. E-learning is more effective than traditional training methods. Examples: learning units may be extended with films or interactive components, continuous education using e-learning can help keep learners’ interest and motivation high (Forsetlund et al., 2021).
• Withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining care is a regular characteristic of medical practice while caring for persons towards the end of their lives. An individual with the ability has the legal right to reject treatments, even if it is necessary to keep them surviving.
• Advance care planning is studying the sorts of choices that may need to be made, contemplating those options in advance, and then communicating the choices to others—both family and medical practitioners.
• Informed consent refers to the procedure through which a health care professional informs a patient about the dangers, advantages, and choices of a certain operation or intervention. Example: I have understood and grasped the information provided, and I have had the opportunity to ask queries (O’Neill, 2017).
• Records management-Supervision and management of digital or paper records in any format.

Workplace policies, procedures, and protocols- A policy express the link between a company’s mission and ideals and its daily activities. Workplace procedures describe detailed action plans for staff to follow when enforcing a policy.

Policy and procedures manual contents- A codified document that specifies all of the essential policies, processes, SOPs, best practices, and guidelines that the organization’s personnel must follow.

Individual contribution to policy & procedures development- A multitude of variables impact public policy, including public sentiment, economic situations, new scientific discoveries, technological progress, interest groups, NGOs, commercial lobbying, and political activities.

• WorkSafe Australia and The National Occupational Health and Safety Commission- They design national policies to improve workplace health and safety (WHS) and workers’ compensation systems throughout Australia.

Workplace Competency standards- Workplace Competency is a set of criteria that specify the degree of achievement at various levels.

Safety Priority- Safety as a concern considers safety as just another to-do item, although an essential one. As a key-value, safety is prioritized over all other considerations.

WHS responsibilities of employers and employees- It is an employer’s responsibility to safeguard the health, safety, and happiness of their employees as well as other persons who may be harmed by their business. Employees must take appropriate precautions to protect the health and safety of individuals who may be harmed by their actions or failures.

Bullying and harassment in the workplace- Bullying (verbal statements), and harassment (verbally or physically) are actions that make somebody feel threatened or insulted.

Harassment via the Medium of Email- Email harassment is often believed to be a type of stalking in which one or more persons send repetitive, unwelcome, and frequently threatening electronic communications to another person.

Notifiable incidents- A notifiable event is an unexpected or unmanaged event in the workplace that puts employees’ or others’ health and safety in danger due to current or impending contact.

• Scenarios, where obvious discrimination towards patients would be noticed, are:
• Domestic violence victim status
• Gender identity or expression
• Retaliation for speaking out against illegal discriminatory acts
• In the elderly care context, the dignity of risk is the notion that an individual can decide what they do and how they want to exist, even though certain lifestyle decisions may be risky (Woolford et al., 2020).
• There are 30 articles in the universal declaration of human rights.
• Every state recognizes the right to health, and every state has signed at least one global human rights pact establishing the right to health.
• Human rights and basic human needs are intimately related ideas. Human rights that belong to everyone because they are human might be considered as the ability or right to satisfy basic human needs. These necessities provide the basis for human rights (Max-Neef, 2017).
• Three approaches are:
• inform all employees about prejudice;
• urge employees to respect one another’s differences;
• reply to any proof of improper behavior or accusations (Gronholm et al., 2017).
• Legal standards are founded on written legislation, but ethical standards are founded on human rights and wrongdoings. Something can be legal yet unethical.

References

ahpra.gov.au. (2018). Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency – June 2018. Ahpra.gov.au.

Allan, S. (2020). Confidentiality. Health Law Central | Sonia Allan.

Carman, N. (2016). Healthcare Law & Ethics.

De Cremer, D., & Vandekerckhove, W. (2017). Managing unethical behavior in organizations: The need for a behavioral business ethics approach. Journal of Management & Organization, 23(3), 437-455.

Forsetlund, L., O’Brien, M. A., Forsén, L., Mwai, L., Reinar, L. M., Okwen, M. P., … & Rose, C. J. (2021). Continuing education meetings and workshops: effects on professional practice and healthcare outcomes. Cochrane database of systematic reviews, (9).

Griffith, R., 2016. What is Gillick competence?. Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics, 12(1), pp.244-247.

Gronholm, P. C., Henderson, C., Deb, T., & Thornicroft, G. (2017). Interventions to reduce discrimination and stigma: the state of the art. Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 52(3), 249-258.

health.gov.au. (2021). Status and determinants of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health.

Max-Neef, M. (2017). Development and human needs. In Development Ethics (pp. 169-186). Routledge.

O’Neill, O. (2017). Some limits of informed consent. In The Elderly (pp. 103-106). Routledge.

Pozgar, G. D. (2019). Legal and ethical issues for health professionals. Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Tariq, R. A., & Hackert, P. B. (2018). Patient confidentiality.

themdu.com. (2021). Disclosure without consent – The MDU. Themdu.com.

Townsend, R., & Luck, M. (2019). Paramedic professionalism. Applied paramedic law, ethics and professionalism: Australia and New Zealand, 1.

Watkin, T. G. (2017). An historical introduction to modern civil law. Routledge.

Woolford, M. H., de Lacy?Vawdon, C., Bugeja, L., Weller, C., & Ibrahim, J. E. (2020). Applying dignity of risk principles to improve quality of life for vulnerable persons. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 35(1), 122-130.