• Curr Opin Anaesthesiol · Apr 2020

    Review

    Doctor and healthcare workers strike: are they ethical or morally justifiable: another view.

    • Sylvester C Chima.
    • Programme of Bio and Research Ethics and Medical Law, School of Nursing and Public Health, and Nelson R Mandela School of Medicine, College of Health Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa.
    • Curr Opin Anaesthesiol. 2020 Apr 1; 33 (2): 203-210.

    Purpose Of ReviewThis review analyzed legal and ethical issues surrounding recent doctor and healthcare worker (HCW) strikes and considered whether HCW strikes are legally and morally justifiable, underlying causes, and impact of such strikes on healthcare service delivery.Recent FindingsRecent reports show that doctor and HCW strikes are an ongoing phenomenon globally, occurring in both developed and developing countries. The main reasons for HCW strikes are failed employer-employee negotiations regarding fair wages and working conditions, policy issues, infrastructural deficiencies in poorer countries, and concerns by HCWs regarding personal security in the workplace. The main impact of HCW strikes is disruption of healthcare service delivery, such as canceled outpatients' appointments, hospital admissions, and elective surgeries. There was no clear evidence of increased patients' mortality during strikes, except in isolated cases, where emergency services were also withdrawn during strikes.SummaryDoctors and HCWs strikes are lawful deadlock-breaking mechanisms when collective bargaining negotiations have reached an impasse. Doctors' strikes appear to create an ethical conflict with the Hippocratic tradition and obligation to place patients' best interests as the primary moral consideration in medical practice. However, the rise of consumerism in healthcare, and loss of power by doctors, many of whom now work as employees, subject to regulations imposed by different stakeholders, including governments, health-maintenance organizations, and healthcare insurers, has impacted on modern medical practice. Therefore, doctors, like other employees may occasionally resort to strikes to extract concessions from employers. Mortality is rarely increased during HCW strikes, especially where emergency healthcare services are provided.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…