Ebola Boundaries

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Pages: 4

The core of medical profession is healing which is an attempt to alleviate suffering and medical profession is constantly pushing it boundaries to improve treatment and save lives. There are different ways to interpret and define boundaries; the first definition is the limit of medical care/technology and treatment available to cure patients for every disease. The second definition is the expected and accepted psychological and social distance between the practitioners and the patients derived from ethical treatise, cultural morality and jurisprudence ⁽1⁾
The first form of boundary is treatment of disease, consider Ebola as an example:
Ebola (also known as Ebola Haemorrhagic fever (Ebola HF)) is regarded as one of the world’s infectious diseases,
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It is define as “the act of intentionally ending the person’s life so as to relieve suffering or pain”. Euthanasia is legalized in countries such as Belgium, Columbia, India, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico and Netherland. 8100 patients died as a result of doctors deliberately giving them overdoses of pain medication, not for the primary purpose of controlling pain, but to hasten the patient’s death.⁽5⁾ In 61% of these case (4941 patients), the intentional overdose was given without the patient’s consent.⁽6⁾ Euthanasia has never been accepted even on request since it’s violate the code of conduct of medical ethics. “A doctor must always bear in mind the obligation of preserving human life from time of conception to death” and “when a doctor intentionally and deliberately enables an individual to end life, the doctor acts unethically”. Despite, conducting euthanasia because of it is in patient best interest and in accord to patients wish it is the cause of slippery slope where voluntary euthanasia might become involuntary. Moreover, as the patient is terminally ill their decision is made out of confusion and they are suffering from fear of future and anxiety as well as feeling burden to the family and the society. Therefore they are pressured to receive euthanasia as a solution. Furthermore, Euthanasia is also violate and limit the reasonable freedoms of others who are affected by the decision. An example is Doctor Cox case who was jailed under attempted murder where he injected a lethal dose of potassium chloride into Lillian Boyes (70 years old patient who suffered from rheumatoid arthritis) for two reasons; first is out of compassion for his patient and secondly is because Lilian Boyes wanted him to