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Patients that cannot gain the required healthcare services in their home state can explore options abroad due to the expansion of the concept of medical tourism. With the rise in globalization, medical tourism has expanded the scope of its options and services, which implies that patients such as George can consider treating their health issues abroad. However, medical tourism may have a variety of ethical implications, as the case at hand shows. Specifically, the increase in the levels of risks needs to be considered a major disadvantage. In addition, receiving informed consent from a patient may become a problem, in some part due to the presence of the language barrier (Makinde, 2016). Therefore, George’s decision to seek healthcare assistance abroad may cause several threats to his well-being.
Moreover, the disruption of medical documentation may become quite an issue. The adoption of the EHR system within the present-day U.S. clinical setting has allowed storing crucial data about patients in a single data set (Cesario, 2020). However, if a patient travels abroad to receive medical assistance, the healthcare support received there will not be mentioned in their U.S. healthcare records (Cesario, 2020). Therefore, the threat of failing to obtain further healthcare support in the U.S. due to the absence of crucial updates in George’s EHR will represent a major risk to his health in the future.
Finally, the probability of George’s immune system being attacked by antibiotics-resistant organisms that are endemic to the environment of the newly chosen hospital setting in a foreign country deserves a mention. Although not being as probable as the rest of the concerns, the described outcome still represents a significant danger that may cause further complications (Mogaka et al., 2017). Therefore, receiving treatment abroad poses a variety of dangers to George’s health in the long term. The ethical reasoning used for this decision was based primarily on the tenets of the Utilitarianism principle since the health outcome, namely, George’s opportunity to survive and recover is the priority in this case.
References
Cesario, S. K. (2018). Implications of medical tourism. Nursing for Women’s Health, 22(3), 269-273.
Makinde, O. A. (2016). Physicians as medical tourism facilitators in Nigeria: ethical issues of the practice. Croatian Medical Journal, 57(6), 601-604. Web.
Mogaka, J. J., Mupara, L., & Tsoka-Gwegweni, J. M. (2017). Ethical issues associated with medical tourism in Africa. Journal of Market Access & Health Policy, 5(1), 1-14.
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