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KE ethics assessment 3
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BUS-FPX4121 Assessment 3 Case Study Scenario
This case study explores a complex scenario involving a patient, Michael, his health care providers and hospital administrators, his father, and his wife as they grapple with the dilemma of medical decision making.
Jenny Baluyot serves as the health care administrator at Brookside Hospital, a public hospital, 250-bed facility located in a suburb of Orlando, Florida. It is 7:00 a.m. on a Thursday, and just as she is preparing to leave her home for her 20-minute commute, Ms. Baluyot receives a call from the hospital director of security. The wife of a comatose patient is demanding to meet with Ms. Baluyot immediately.
Background
Michael is a man in his mid-40s, with uncontrolled diabetes. Michael is a heavy medical marijuana user and became addicted to opioids, which he started using when trying to control his diabetic neuropathy and a job-related back injury. Michael has various other medical issues stemming from his own medical choices and was brought into the hospital via ambulance after being in a car accident.
Michael had active prior injuries due to poisonous spider bites, which, when compounded with new injuries from the accident, required multiple surgeries. These surgeries included the removal of multiple digits. During one of the surgeries, Michael slipped into a coma.
Michael had been living separately from his wife, Tifanía, for two years at the time. For those two years Michael was living with his father, Chris. Tifania was providing insurance and financial assistance while he struggled with his drug dependence.
Michael kept Tifanía informed of his situation up until the time that he went into the final surgery. At the time that Michael went into a coma, the hospital contacted Chris and not Tifanía, even though she was listed on his admittance paperwork as his spouse and emergency contact, as Chris was the person they saw in the hospital.
At this point, Chris began making medical decisions without consulting Tifania. Michael was on a ventilator and functioning purely through medical intervention for close to a month. Something Michael was very vocal about not wanting throughout his life, as he was frequently ill suffering strokes and smaller comas which lasted minutes to hours due to his past reactions to anesthesia.
When Tifanía called to speak with the hospital after not hearing from Michael about how his latest surgery went, the hospital staff refused to give Tifanía any information about the situation and instead told her that she needed to speak with Chris, who had claimed that he and Michael’s minor sons (17 and 10) were the next of kin because according to Chris, Michael and Tifanía were divorced.
After three weeks, the hospital performed an apnea test and Michael was declared dead. Tifania was informed of his death via text message from Chris and the hospital continued to refuse to communicate with Tifania including refusing to release medical records to her even though she provided proof of marriage.
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