On 4 May 2017, the Central University of Technology, Free State (CUT), in partnership with the University of the Free State (UFS), launched a newly published book, Healthcare Ethics for Healthcare Practitioners, which is intended to raise awareness amongst healthcare practitioners and patients of the various ethical challenges faced by the profession in both the private and public sectors. 

Although the world of medicine is monitored and regulated so that patients are treated according to an acceptable standard, the book covers a range of fundamental issues including vulnerability in healthcare, decisions between right and wrong, quality of healthcare, life-ending decisions, community based research, ethical decision making and spirituality in healthcare. The authors, Prof. Laetus Lategan, Director: Research Development and Postgraduate Studies at CUT, and Prof. Gert van Zyl, Dean: Faculty of Health Sciences at UFS, aim to provide a moral compass that can guide healthcare professionals in terms of ethics, and their relations with patients. In the book, Profs. Lategan and Van Zyl focus on modern-day healthcare ethics, and how those ethics apply to both patients and healthcare practitioners, including doctors, professional nurses and therapists. 

Renewed emphasis is placed on the importance of healthcare ethics due to the diverse range of healthcare services, and the deterioration of such services, particularly in developing countries. Ways of integrating the findings into real-life situations facing the profession, are also addressed. The book is an elaborate reference that will enable healthcare practitioners to make informed decisions, should they be faced with ethical dilemmas in their practices, and will assist them to obtain a better understanding of, and devise solutions to, problems faced by communities at large. The guest speaker at the book launch, Dr Susan Vosloo, a cardiothoracic surgeon said that practical results were achievable if most decisions were based on the interest of the individual patient. “Most people know the difference between what is right and what is wrong and that healthcare decisions based on right or wrong may evolve from time to time depending on the availability of resources, religion, legal and cultural issues, daily practicalities, scientific progress, as well as the patient, the community and many more,” she said. In his address Prof Gert van Zyl said the book is “a joyful journey of collaboration between the two universities, a journey of academic colleagues becoming friends, journey of co-authors and the journey of supervisors and students becoming co-authors”. He explained the book deals with a relationship between practitioners, patients and the community (family), and the influence of technology on how healthcare practitioners practice. He also mentioned that they wanted to focus on creating new approaches to healthcare from an ethical perspective and to provide guidance on ethics- not only to healthcare practitioners, but also to patients. “We hope that this book will make a difference in healthcare delivery,” he concluded. Prof. Laetus Lategan said that modern science must become more interdisciplinary which will transcend the way science is conceived. He said the book is his contribution to The Year of the Human Project at CUT which is closing the gap to all the challenges experienced in the society. “The essence of healthcare is to be of service to other people and have a relationship with other people, I think its high time for us to start caring for one another especially in the academic environment. If we are really looking after the health of other people whether it is mental, spiritual or physical health it starts with caring for other people.”

 

This book proposes guidelines to the patient and healthcare practitioner and invites an engaged dialogue between patients, healthcare practitioners, healthcare managers and administrators, and communities supporting the people working in healthcare and the people who benefit from healthcare.

1: Book signing by Profs Gert van Zyl (picture on the left) and Laetus Lategan has been an overwhelmingly exciting and positive experience after years of digging deeper into matters that impact the healthcare sector in the 21^st Century.