Correctional health care

Assignment
Review the grading rubric for this assignment.

Submit a properly formatted APA title page, introduction paragraph with purpose statement and reference page on the topic below:

Organ Allocation Case Study: Correctional Healthcare

Each year, patients with cardiomyopathy are placed on a “wait list” for cardiac transplantation. The number of patients waiting for a transplant far outnumbers the available organs. While there are protocols for determining how organs are allocated, ethical questions do exist.

Correctional health care is a field of medicine that specializes in providing healthcare services to individuals incarcerated in our nation’s prisons. In 2002, a prisoner in the State of California prison system underwent a heart transplant at Stanford University Hospital. Obviously, this case produced great debate related to healthcare in correctional facilities and organ allocation. In the 1970’s, the Supreme Court decided that denying medical services to prisoners was deemed unconstitutional as it was cruel and unusable punishment. For the purposes of this assignment, let’s consider the following case study of two potential candidates for a heart transplant as a donor heart has become available. Who do you think should receive the transplant?

Mr. Rodriquez

Mr. Rodriquez, a 33 year old, is currently serving a 15-year sentence in a state correctional facility for robbery. This is his second incarceration as he previously served an 18 month sentence for burglary when he was 19 years old. For over a year, he has been treated for viral cardiomyopathy. The cause of his viral cardiomyopathy is unknown. Otherwise, he has no other health problems with the exception of a history of mild hypertension. Since his incarceration, he has been a model prisoner and could be eligible for parole in five years. In the past 6 months, he has been in the prison’s infirmary as his cardiac disease has worsened. He has now been transported to the hospital to be evaluated for transplantation and has been allowed, by the state, to be placed on the “wait list” for a transplant.

Mr. Smith

Mr. Smith is a 59 year old former construction worker with severe ischemic cardiomyopathy. He lives at home with his wife and three children. Financially, he has struggled as he is currently receiving social security disability income. His health history includes hypertension, renal insufficiency, coronary artery disease (with two previous myocardial infarctions), and alcohol abuse. He has remained sober for the past three years, but admits it is a daily struggle. He has been evaluated for a heart transplant at a medical center 200 miles away from his home and has been on the “wait list” for the past six months.

For this assignment, you will be in the role of the Director of Nursing at the Medical Center and have been serving on the hospital’s ethics board with physicians, clergy, and other hospital administrators for the past year. You will write a paper about whom you think, from an ethical perspective, should be eligible to receive the next available heart. In the paper, you should make a choice, argue for your decision, and detail an ethical principle or theory that supports that decision.

For more information about the mentioned California case, you can read this news report or search the internet for other articles related to the case.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/prisoner-gets-1m-heart-transplant/ (Links to an external site.)

Grading Rubric:

APA Title Page worth 10 points

APA Reference Page worth 5 points

APA Running Head, Page Numbers, & Headings worth 5 points

Purpose Statement worth 5 points

Introduction Paragraph worth 25 points

Total Points: 50