HEALTHCARE FOR PRISIONERS

Ethics, should U.S. provide Healthcare for Prisoners



Ethics, Should U.S. provides Healthcare for Prisoners

Introduction

This paper will discuss "Should the U.S. provide healthcare for prisoners?” In my view, it is necessary for the US government to provide healthcare for prisoners as it is their responsibility to provide healthcare to every person in the country and it also reflects the ethical perspectives which should be followed by the government. Paper will provide some Legal and Ethical Perspectives of Health Care; along with it will provide justifications for the question mentioned above.

Discussions and Justifications

Despite the massive amounts of government spending on healthcare for incarcerated persons, questions remain as to the quantity and quality of such healthcare. Inmate complaints, both administrative and in the courts, regularly allege receipt of poor medical care. Different media forums periodically report shocking stories of poor medical outcomes for prisoners (BBC News, 2010). Correctional healthcare providers like their private-sector counterparts are subject to claims alleging medical malpractice and pay settlements or judgments for injuries. Several states have had adverse court rulings finding constitutional violations related to the system-wide quality of prison healthcare. US government should provide high quality medical treatments to the intimate prisoners as the general public are receiving to reduce the discrimination and oblige the ethical perspectives.

To address the issue of correctional healthcare in the 21st century, it is necessary to examine the obligation of government to provide healthcare to prisoners, the costs of such healthcare, and issues relate to the provision of healthcare to prisoners. While prisons and jails both detain prisoners, each component may have very different inmate needs. Of the 2.2 million persons detained by the United States in 2008, some 780,000 were held in jails as either pretrial detainees or convicted offenders sentenced to short sentences. Jails have more admissions and discharges than prisons and hold each detainee for a shorter period of time—sometimes as little as 24 hours—but at other times, for over a year. Because of the transient population, jails deal with some issues more frequently than prisons, including substance withdrawal and injuries incurred during arrests. Because of the longer term of sentences, prisons deal with many chronic health issues (Awofeso, 2005).

Legal and Ethical Perspectives of Health Care

Health care is a general facility which people are availing by all over the world. No matter, the person is rich or poor; old or young; male or female, he or she needs to avail these services. Health care is typically provided to individual patients. The ethics of health care focuses issues related to several stakeholders, including providers, families, third party payers and corporations, institutions and patients.

Health educators are solely responsible for maintaining the integrity and ethics of the health profession, these individuals face occasional challenges in their daily life while making decisions. Code of Ethics gives a framework of values that are followed by professions including Health Education (Ashcroft & Dawson, 2007). These ethics promote justice, doing good and prevention of harm. The ethics of health care is a subject that ...