A Critical Examination of the Health Care Act and Chaneys - Case Study Example

Identification Number: Business Ethics Introduction A critical examination of the Health Care Act and Chaney’s case will show that it is unethical for Plainfield Management to honor their White patients’ requests to be helped by only members of their own race. The Healthcare Center hired Chaney as a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) hence she should have been entrusted with the mandate to carry out her duties professionally without being subjected to discrimination on the basis of race (Velasquez, 367). The Nursing Center housed a patient who was against receiving any form of help from the Black nursing assistants. The management complied with the patient’s racial preference through instructing Chaney that Black assistants should neither enter the patient’s room nor provide her with any form of assistance. Chaney found it hard to survive in the workplace due to the discrimination upon basis of race that made her to feel intimidated. She filed a case under Title VII of 1964 Civil Rights Act terming the management’s practice of honoring biased racial preferences of their patients as being illegal. She argued that the decision made the working environment hostile to Blacks and even made her to lose her job. She claims that she was dismissed from work due to the fact that she was Black, and Black assistants were not preferred by the White patients. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission urged for a reversal of the summary judgment to Plainfield that was delivered by the district court. It was argued that the racial preference led to creation of hostile working environment and considered Chaney’s discharge to have been racially motivated. However, the action of the Plainfield management can be argued to have been a form of compliance to its policy that honors racial preferences of their patients. Plainfield made it clear that failure to honor their patients’ racial preference would be a violation of the State and Federal Laws that grant patients the right to choose their providers. Although the Healthcare Center was bound to respecting the racial preferences of its clients, it lost the insight of protecting the rights of its own employees. Despite cautioning Chaney against administering any form of assistance to Latshaw, the White patient, the management kept adding the resident on her assignment sheet. Therefore, it became challenging for Chaney to carry out her professional duties effectively due to the fact that she was limited by the patient’s racial preference. She was forced to look for the White Nursing Assistants to help the White patients on her assignment sheet even when in a good position to help them. The racial preference affected Chaney’s working environment because even the White workmates started hating and discriminating her. One of the White CNAs called her a “black bitch” while another argued that she did not see the sense in decision of Plainfield to keep on hiring “black niggers”. The incidences of racial discrimination made the workplace unfriendly and stressful to the Black CNAs. Chaney was once accused of using profanity while helping a White patient who was struggling to get out of her bed and signaled a call light. Although the patient was in C.J Hart’s unit, a White CNA, he refused to react at first. Chaney was the other CNA who was in a good position to respond to the call and decided to assist the patient. Although she was acting professionally, her action led to her discharge. The patient accused her of using profanity hence forcing the Director of Nursing to fire her although there was no substantial proof to ascertain that Chaney used profanity. On the other hand, Hart was not interviewed about the incidence until two weeks later despite the fact that the patient was in his unit. A punishment should first have been subjected to Hart because he heard the alarm in his unit and never responded. Title VII prohibits employers from discriminating any individual in terms of compensation terms, employment privileges or working conditions due to the individual’s race (Smith, 584). Therefore, it means that Plainfield’s policy of racial preference was against the provisions of Title VII. In its defense, Plainfield argued that just the same way that Title VII permitted gender discrimination in health-care setting in order to protect the privacy interests of patients, the Healthcare Center should also be allowed to practice racial preference to protect interests of the residents. However, the argument is not persuasive because Title VII allows employers to obey the preference of same-sex health-care provider and not same-race health-care provider (Velasquez, 369). The management’s practice can be termed to be unethical because it concentrates on protecting the interests of the residents at the expense of the welfare of its employees (Weiss, 768). For instance, when Chaney finds Latshaw lying on the ground unable to stand she runs to search for a White CNA to help her because she is prohibited from administering any form of assistance to her. The management kept reminding Chaney that it was employing her on materially different terms from the other White workmates. This factor made her to feel humiliated hence compromised her ability to perform her duties well. She used to receive reminders on her assignment sheet about some White residents housed in her unit who “prefers no Black CNAs”. Such reminders made her to consider the workplace racially biased hence hostile to Blacks. The facility has several options to end the racially-motivated hostility such as; warning its residents against any form of racial discrimination and securing their consent through writing. However, the management unethically chose to ignore such options and major in protecting the preference of the residents at the expense of the Black CNAs welfare. Care Theory According to Cory, the theory of care argues that when a patient is admitted to a healthcare facility, a duty of care is created between the patient, the doctors, other patients and any other persons employed by the Trust to deliver care to the patient (112). Therefore, when a healthcare provider fails to act responsibly in administering care to a patient he or she is said to have been negligent. For instance, a patient who is desperately in need of help is owed duty of care to any healthcare provider who happens to be around regardless of whether the patient is in his assignment sheet or not. Healthcare providers are expected to react to any emergences within their workplaces in order to help patients who are in need of help. According to Campbell, a healthcare provider cannot sit back and watch a patient die simply because the patient is not in his assignment sheet. Healthcare providers owe every patient within their facility duty of care (518). Chaney acted in obedience to her duty of care in several occasions within the workplace. First, she responded by looking for a White CNA to help Latshaw when she was struggling on the ground being too weak to stand. Secondly, she responded to help Cafoura, a White resident in Plainfield, when she was struggling to get out of bed although she was not in her unit. Duty of care compels all healthcare providers to react accordingly when in a position to help patients from any form of difficult. Failure to observe the duty of care can render a healthcare provider to be declared to have been negligent or even breached duty. For instance, if any form of damages were suffered by Cafoura, C.J Hart would have been accused of having breached duty and being negligent at the same time because he was in a position to help her and the patient being in his unit but he failed to do so. Conclusion Judgment Plainfield Management’s policy allows some degree of unethicality within the workplace. The policy violates the right of employees to experience equal treatment and to be protected against any form of discrimination according to Title VII. The management focusses too much on protecting the interests of its residents while compromising the welfare of the employees who are the key personnel in ensuring welfare of the facility. The policy allows racial discrimination that is hidden in the concept of protecting the interests of the patients. There is little focus being paid to the management policy about the fact the all CNAs, regardless of their race, are professionally bound by equal ethical standards hence they can be entrusted to attend to patients. It means that the management has doubts on the ability of the Black CNAs to offer quality care to the White residents. This factor leads to several detrimental aspects within the workplace. The policy should be nullified in order to award all employees equal opportunities attend to residents. Preventing Black CNAs from administering help to the White residents is a violation of the provisions of Title VII and also a compromise to the provisions of duty of care. The management has several options of amending its Racial Preference Policy in order to suit ensure welfare of all employees. First, it has an option of nullifying it and making it clear to its residents that the workplace does not tolerate any form discrimination on the basis of race. This option would even lead the other White CNAs to know that the workplace does not favor any of them, but it ensures that the welfare of all employees is protected. Secondly, it also has an option of listing the White residents on the assignment sheets of the White CNAs and warn the employees against discriminating one another. This option would be better is the primary aim of the management is to protect the racial preference of the residents. It is unethical to assign an employee an assignment that he or she is not supposed to attempt. For instance, the management kept on listing Latshaw on Chaney’s assignment sheet and reminding her that the resident does not prefer any Black CNAs. This is a form of intimidation because Chaney was forced to start looking for White CNAs to help her in her assignment. This factor led to development of hatred between the White CNAs and the Black CNAs. It can possibly be argued to have been the cause of the statement that was made by one of the White CNAs arguing that she did not know why Plainfield kept “hiring these Black Niggers”. It wasn’t sensible to the White CNA why the management kept hiring Blacks and yet they could not administer care to White residents. The policy can be termed to have ignited racial discrimination among the stakeholders of the workplace hence making it hostile. Preferred Theory Preference interests of the residents should only be allowed on the basis of gender but not race. The management should allow the residents to make requests on their most preferred healthcare providers in terms of gender in order to protect their privacy interests. This factor would be applicable because of the fact that it is not ethical for a patient to undress or get washed by a healthcare provider of the opposite sex. However, the case of residents being allowed to deny being attended to by healthcare providers of a different race should not be tolerated within the workplace because it has more negative effects than positive ones. For instance, the case of Chaney made Plainfield to be perceived has being a racist workplace by the members of the public. Therefore, it would be hard for the facility to Black clients because they fear that they might be subjected to the same racial discrimination that the Black CNAs got subjected to. Work Cited Campbell, Tom. Human Resource Management: Ethics and Employment. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Cory, Jacques. Activist Business Ethics. Boston: Springer, 2009. Smith, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 2013. Velasquez, Manuel G. Business Ethics Concets & Cases. Oxford: Pearson Education, 2012. Weiss, John. Business Ethics: A Stakeholder and Issues Management Approach with Cases. Mason: South-Western Cengage Learning, 2011. Read More