Perspective Of Medical Ethical Practices in Health Care System of Pakistan

Abstract

The obligations and duties of doctors, healthcare providers and hospitals towards patients, careers, and society are addressed by medical ethics.

There are a number of bioethics that are specific to the medical field and that apply to various medical institutions and professional groups. The Hippocratic Oath that healthcare professionals must take when joining the medical fraternity contains the legal, ethical, and moral obligations of doctors¹ Patients' rights (autonomy), resource equity, patient confidentiality, justice, non-maleficence, beneficence, patient safety, conflict of interests, ethics of privatization, informed consent, handling of the opposite sex, beginning and end of life, and healthcare team ethics are the main ethical issues and principles². Medical workers are required to follow a set of fundamental, widely accepted medical ethical rules in the realm of health care. In underdeveloped nations, patient treatment frequently disregards bioethical standards and patient privacy.

Although Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) has its own code of medical ethics, there isn't much proof that it effectively polices ethical transgressions. In addition to flagrant violations of the code of conduct, it is frequently seen that informed permission, secrecy, and privacy are misused in "reasonable" ways³. At Pakistan's hospitals, both in the public and commercial sectors, there is insufficient adherence to ethical standards. Due to a lack of a strong system of monitoring and sanctions by the relevant Authorities, it is alleged that a lack of effective policy and regulation governing the ethical practice of medicine has a detrimental impact on the profession⁴

These issues are against the international standards of medical ethics, and the sad reality is that people are paying with their lives for many of the unethical practices because of these issues. Medical ethics and guidelines have been mandated by PMC and PHC for decades to avoid contentious issues and to include biomedical ethics in medical practices and curricula. The National Bioethics Committee was established in January 2004 with the approval of the Pakistani government. It has between 20 and 21 members and is led by the Director General of Health at the Ministry of Health. In contrast, the Centre of Biomedical Ethics and Culture (CBEC), which was established in 2004 at SIUT (Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation) and is the first of its kind in Pakistan, offers Master's degrees in bioethics and promotes bioethical education, research, and training in Pakistan⁵