Lillian Palermo did everything
she could to prepare for the future. To prepare for the future, Lillian gave
her husband, power of attorney and healthcare if she became incapable of taking
care of herself in the future. This is exactly what happened, however, now the
nursing home is suing him for guardianship of his wife. He is with his wife
everyday caring for her and then sees that his bill doubled without notice.
Also, nurses were not careful with his wife. In a few instances, she was
dropped on the floor by employees. This issue was eventually resolved since Mr.
Palermo decided to pay the arrears owed.
The nursing home suing Dino
Palermo can evolve into an ethical dilemma because usually guardianship legal
issues occur when there is no relative in the picture as stated by Nina
Bernstein. In this case, Dino was taking care of his wife daily. Per Bernstein,
a new trend seen in society today is that nursing homes are filing these lawsuits
solely to collect debt owned from patients. As seen in Ethical Theory and Business, the authors discuss how something
legal is not necessarily moral. This point raises another issue. Is something
that is legal morally correct or is it just a rule placed by society for us to
follow? Legally, it is not against the law for a nursing home to file this sort
of lawsuit. But were they correct in doing such?
Per Managerial Ethics lecture,
Ethics have been distorted due to the separation of ethics and morality. Due to
this separation, the question of whether the nursing home’s actions were
ethical is harder to answer since our minds have been washed with the idea of
postmodernism. The nursing home specifically utilized the postmodern way of
thinking. Since the nursing home, did not receive what they wanted;
they decided to involve the court system and fight for their profits rather than focusing on the needs of the patient. Therefore, I
conclude that an ethical issue has been raised and that the nursing home acted
outside of their ethical contract since they were just pursuing their own needs
versus the needs of others.
Emerging in our society today,
we see the debate of stockholder versus stakeholder theory. What view should a
company be in compliance with? The stockholder view holds that everything
belongs to the owner of the corporation. Stakeholder view, on the other hand, states
that corporations will act in the interest of stakeholders such as customers, employees,
suppliers, and local community. The nursing home is being compliant with the
stockholder perspective because they have decided to place the corporation over
the customer.
The nursing home should have pursued
the stakeholder perspective. Placing effected parties such as customers ahead
of one’s own needs is more effective in the long run. By developing an honest
relationship with a customer, a company will be able to count on their business
in the future due to loyalty and fair treatment. Also, loyal customers will
refer their friends and help the business thrive by spreading the word through
word of mouth.
In conclusion, ethical issues
have been raised with the nursing home and the Palermo family. Since Mr.
Palermo was taking care of his wife, a lawsuit should have never even been
considered. The nursing home should in the future develop an ethical culture so
that a new culture is created and this issue will not occur again in the
future. Instilled in the new culture should be the stakeholder approach in
which the customers, members of community should be first priority of the
nursing home.
Bibliography
Arnold, D. A., Beauchamp, T.L., & Bowie, N.E. (2012). Ethical Theory and
Business. Pearson Education.
Bertstein, N. (2015, January 26). To Collect
Debt, Nursing Home Seizing Conrtrol Over Patients. Retrieved from
msn.com:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/to-collect-debts-nursing-home-seizing-control-over-patients/ar-AA8A7Q6
(2015, January 22). Managerial Ethics Lecture. (D.
J. Bishop, Interviewer)
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