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| Article - Abstract. To view full article click on the article title. | |
eMJA: Komesaroff, Ethical implications of competition policy in healthcare Ethical implications of competition policy in healthcare We need to debate the ethical and philosophical questions underlying the application of market economics to healthcare Paul A Komesaroff MJA 1999; 170: 266-268 The Melbourne Age of 28 July 1998 reported the case of Dr Stephen Vaughan, a medical oncologist, who, after 23 years in public hospitals, resigned, disillusioned and dispirited. According to the Age, Dr Vaughan left medical practice because the value he holds dearest -- caring -- seems to have disappeared. In Dr Vaughan's own words: The personal dimension of care is regarded in the public sector as an optional extra -- but it shouldn't be optional. It is essential. . . . Public hospitals used to be the holder of the values of community and personal caring, irrespective of ability to pay . . . but now they're just another organisation chasing the buck, and if you don't get paid you don't do it.1 As the responses in the letters columns seem to attest, this experience of contemporary medicine is common in Australia today. There appears to be a widely felt sense that the opening up of medicine to commercial interests and the promotion of economic competition have undermined fundamental values and seriously threaten patient care. It is widely felt, too, that these issues have been substantially neglected in the public debates, which have focused almost exclusively on technical issues of financing at the expense of ethical and cultural questions.2 I shall argue that the social policy which promotes economic competition as a major technique for regulating the healthcare industry raises a wide range of issues about the organisation and dynamics of healthcare and is likely to lead to a variety of outcomes that are not beneficial. Full Article: http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/mar15/komesaroff/komesaroff.html |
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2006 Ethics-Governance.com |
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