Introduction
The problem of the professional negligence is extremely important today because it can affect the normal functioning of organizations, employees and people who are involved in the functioning of an organization. In this respect, the negligence in the field of health care services is particularly dangerous because it is human health, life, dignity and privacy that are at stake. In such a context, health care professionals should be very careful in the performance of their professional duties and obligations in order to avoid the risk of the professional negligence. In actuality, the problem of the professional negligence in the field of health care services involves not only legal issues, but also ethical, professional and cultural ones. Health care professionals cannot admit the professional negligence in their work because they need to ensure the protection of patients’ health as well as their interests and privacy. In this respect, the problem of professional negligence does not necessarily involve some action or inaction that causes harm to the health of patients. Instead, it can involve the problem of losing case notes, which contain important information on the patient’s case. In fact, such problems raise a number of legal and ethical issues because the patient’s privacy is at risk and, what is more, the case notes are of the utmost importance for the efficient treatment of patient. Therefore, the loss of case notes may be viewed as one of the manifestations of the professional negligence, which is absolutely unacceptable in the context of the health care environment.
Legal issues
The problem of the professional negligence can be viewed in two dimensions. On the one hand, the professional negligence in the health care environment implies the threat to the life and health of a patient, when action or inaction of a health care professional lead to the deterioration of the health of a patient or made the treatment inefficient or simply affected the treatment negatively. On the other hand, the professional negligence in the health care environment implies the violation of the privacy right of a patient. In fact, the loss of case notes involves both dimensions of the professional negligence which raise a number of legal issues, which affect patients consistently.
In actuality, the loss of case notes is primarily the threat to the life and health of a patient because, from the legal point of view, such a professional negligence puts under a threat the course of the treatment and its efficiency that naturally threatens to the life and health of a patient. Obviously, action or inaction of a health care professional that increase the risk to the life and health of a patient imply the legal action which should punish the health care professional and restrict the professional activities of this specialist. In other words, from the legal point of view, a health care professional that puts the life and health of his or her patient under a threat cannot continue his or her professional work and, what is more, if his or her actions have had a negative impact on the patient’s health, he or she should be punished.
At the same time, it is obvious that the loss of case notes is a direct threat to the right of a patient to privacy, which is secured by existing legal norms. In fact, the loss of the case notes can lead to private information breaches and private information concerning the patient’s health and personality can be revealed to the public. Naturally, such information breaches affect dramatically the position of a patient because information concerning the health of a patient is traditionally considered to be extremely important and patients are unwilling to uncover information related to their health without their consent, while the loss of case notes leads to the information breach which can lead to the unauthorized access to the private information of a patient without his or her consent.
It proves beyond a doubt that the protection of private information of patients is one of the primary duties of health care professionals. Therefore, the provision of health care services should not lead to the violation of human rights of patients, including the right to privacy. Otherwise, patients would suffer from the abuse of their basic human rights and the entire health care system would be an offensive system, where there were no guarantees of the security of the private information of patients. In such a context, the violation of patients’ rights to privacy can be interpreted as a professional negligence. From the legal point of view, the violation of the patient’s right to privacy is unacceptable because the proper work of a health care professional implies that he or she is responsible for the observation and respect to human rights of patients, including the right to privacy.
Ethical issues
At the same time, the professional negligence involving the loss of case notes evokes not only legal but also ethical issues. In fact, the professional ethics of health care professionals bans the professional negligence, especially if it involves the loss of case notes. In actuality, the problem of the loss of case notes raises the problem of the private information breach which affects the dignity of a patient and his or her confidence in health care professionals.
To put it more precisely, the professional negligence always provokes a negative reaction from the part of patients and the public because health care professionals are responsible for the proper performance of their professional duties. In such a context, the loss of case notes is an obvious manifestation of professional negligence. At the same time, the loss of case notes is offensive for a patient because case notes contain detailed information on the health problem of a patient and, normally, patients are very sensitive to such a sort of information. Moreover, as a rule, patients are unwilling to uncover this information even to their relatives. Therefore, the loss of case notes is extremely offensive to a patient, who does not want other people get any information about his or her health problems. In such a situation, it is human dignity of patients that is at stake and health care professionals should not admit the loss of case notes.
In addition, the loss of case notes evokes even a more serious ethical problem – the problem of the confidence of patients in the qualification of health care professionals and efficiency of the entire health care system. Naturally, patients starts to doubt whether the health care professional, who has lost the case notes, is capable to treat him or her and cure the health problem he or she suffers from. Moreover, the patients cannot be fully confident in the health care system, where the loss of case notes is possible. Therefore, a patient naturally starts to look for alternative options of treatment or simply refuses to continue his or her treatment with the health care system.
Basically, the professional negligence leads to the deterioration of patients-physicians relationships, which leads to the consistent decrease of the efficiency of the work of health care professionals as patients are not confident in their reliability. At the same time, the professional negligence can also affect the relationships of a patient with his or her relatives. In such a context, it is absolutely unethical to lose case notes, especially if a patient attempts to keep in secret his or her health problems from his or her relatives and friends. In fact, the loss of case notes is the direct threat to the relationship of a patient and his or her relatives and friends. Therefore, the professional negligence of a health care professional can undermine the normal relationship between a patient and his or her relatives and friends that definitely violates all the ethical norms and principles a true health care professional should observe and respect.
Professional issues
It proves beyond a doubt that professional negligence involving the loss of case notes evokes a number of professional issues. As it has been just mentioned above, the loss of case notes undermines the confidence of patients in the reliability and qualification of health care professionals. Naturally, in such a situation, health care professionals cannot keep working with patients who have lost confidence in their reliability. Instead, health care professionals need to gain the confidence of patients. They need to persuade patients that they are worth trusting and patients can fully rely on their professionalism. The more a patient is confident in his or her physician, the more efficient is the treatment because the psychological state of a patient is of the utmost importance in the course of the treatment.
In this respect, it is important to lay emphasis on the fact that the professional ethics is extremely important for health care professionals because it is inseparable from their professional work. Basically, health care professionals are responsible for the provision of health care services for patients and any harm is absolutely unacceptable for health care professionals because it contradicts to fundamental professional norms and principles of health care professionals. Furthermore, it is necessary to take into consideration the fact that health care professionals need to respect rights of patients. Health care professionals are responsible for the protection of human rights of patients. Therefore, health care professionals cannot lose case notes since it is the violation of basic professional norms and principles.
Cultural issues
The professional negligence involves a number of cultural issues. In fact, the modern society is extremely concerned with the protection of privacy rights. Therefore, the violation of privacy rights contradicts not only to legal but also to cultural norms. The modern culture implies that the health care system is secured from information breaches and the protection of their privacy rights. At the same time, the professional negligence is also unacceptable in terms of the modern culture because, today, professionalism is one of the primary concerns in any occupation, especially in the field of health care services. In such a way, the professional negligence involving the loss of case notes contradicts to existing cultural norms which stand for the rights of patients and imply the high qualification of health care professionals.
On the other hand, it is important to take into consideration the fact that the profession of a physician is highly respectable in the modern society. This profession is considered to be not only well-paid but also highly humanistic and important for all the society. This is why health care professionals are respected by the society and the violation of rights of patients and professional negligence undermine the respect of the society to physicians and health care system at large.
Conclusion
Thus, taking into account all above mentioned, it is possible to conclude that the work of health care professionals is often accompanied by numerous legal, ethical, professional and cultural concerns. In this respect, the professional negligence and the loss of private information of patients is particularly dangerous because it threatens to the life and health of patients and, simultaneously, it provokes information breaches that violates the right of patients to privacy. Therefore, the loss of case notes as well as any other form of professional negligence is absolutely unacceptable in the health care environment because it raises a number of legal, ethical, professional and cultural issues.

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