Medical laws

Medical laws

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Medical Laws

This court case involves Mr. Frields as the plaintiff and St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center as the defendant. It constitutes an appeal by the complainant following a previous ruling that was in favor of the hospital in question. The main issue involves the death of Mr. Frields’ son following a confirmed subarachnoid hemorrhage. As indicated in this court case, the father of the deceased informed the hospital of his son’s health complication after fainting. A team from the Mobile Intensive Care Unit (MICU) and the Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) responded to this call and identified drug overdose as the main cause of the deceased’s health complications. These experts administered Narcan to him in order to neutralize the effects of the drugs before taking him to the ambulance (Hunter, 2009). Nonetheless, the patient resisted these attempts and several people including a police officer had to assist in subduing him. Unfortunately, he died a few hours upon reaching the medical center.

Accordingly, his father filed a court case against the hospital by claiming that this medical team used excessive force while restraining his son, an aspect that resulted in his death. Additionally, he claims that the personnel deliberately inflicted emotional stress on the patient. As part of attaining a fair verdict in the motion and appeal case, the involved judges used various laws including the MICU, EMT, and Good Samaritan laws. For example, according to the Good Samaritan Act, volunteers or employees within the medical profession who act in response to a medical emergency and administer any form of first aid treatment are not legally responsible for the outcomes (Hunter, 2009). Similar stipulations are present in the EMT and MICU laws. According to the policies governing the role of the MICU and EMT, any licensed medical officer shall not be liable for the outcomes following an act or exclusion of an action while offering complex life-saving services or on training (Michigan, 2000). However, these actions have to exhibit integrity and unintentional harm in accordance with the stipulations of his or her profession. For this reason, the arbitrator of this appeal case ruled in favor of the defendant.

References

Hunter, N. D. (2009). The law of emergencies: Public health and disaster management. Burlington, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Michigan. (2000). Michigan Good Samaritan laws. Lansing, Mich.: Legislative Service Bureau.