Legal Analysis Darling Versus Charleston Memorial Hospital (Essay Sample)

An ethical and legal analysis of the Darling Versus Charleston Memorial Hospital case
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An ethical and legal analysis of the Darling Versus Charleston Memorial Hospital case
According to Wiet (2005), the1965 Darling versus Charleston Community Hospital case marked the beginning of radical alterations in the hospital liability jurisprudence. This paper will attempt to analyze two of the legal issues that influenced the jury’s decision to rule for the plaintiff as well as elaborate on how the Charleston Community Hospital failed in its ethical responsibility to the patient.
First and foremost, the first legal issue emanates from the Illinois Supreme Court’s affirmation that the negligence by Charleston Community Hospital (defendant) directly led to the amputation of the plaintiff’s leg. Before the 1965 landmark case, hospitals were only responsible for procuring doctors and nurses and did not follow up on the sort of treatments used on patients. Both of the allegations leveled against the defendant provided the jury with practical guidance for a hospital’s reasonable care. Citing from 1957 Bing versus Thunig case, the Illinois Supreme Court came to the conclusion that hospitals had become reluctant in exercising their duty of care and that they had become business entities that merely provided medical facilities (Krause & Goldfarb, 2009).
Secondly, the other legal matters can be raised from the court’s explanation of what institutes competent evidence of a hospital’s responsibility to provide reasonable care to its patients. The Illinois Supreme Court was clear in explaining that the regulations, bylaws, and standards brought forth by the plaintiff as evidence helped the jury in determining what was reasonable. As illustrated by the court’s decision, it is lawfully sufficient to uphold a verdict in cases where one of the violations of hospital duties are sustainable on appeal. Out of the obligation of care concerns brought before the Darlin Jury, only two were sustained by the court; nurse staffing shortage or incompetence; and failure to follow up on the plaintiff’s health status while hospitalized.
Apart from the negligence of duty of care, the hospital also failed its moral responsibility to the plaintiff. Beneficence is one of the moral values that the hospital failed to uphold. Bates (2004) depicts that beneficence ethical value requires hospitals to undertake medical practices that serve to improve the condition of patients. Contrary to this definition, the emergency department physician at the Charleston Community Memorial Hospital failed to seek consultation. If he had done so, then a specialist would have been called in, and he/she would have been able to identify the developing problem ultimately avoiding the need for amputating the patient’s leg.
The hospital also failed to live up to the non-maleficence moral value. The non-maleficence ethical value states that before it is more important for medical practitioners not to harm patients than to do them good (Emst & Stone, 2004). This value requires physicians to evaluate their treatment to avoid the chances of its failure. The physician’s mistake was placing a cast on the patient’s leg without considering th...