Utilitarianism theory of ethics indicates that an action is right if it results in prominent benefit to greatest number of people. It is important to identify both the people who would be helped by a proposed course of action and the people who would be harmed by it.
“The medical encounter on the utilitarianism theory involves three sets of ethical duties: one for the patients, one for the physicians and one for the relationship between them” (In Sheikh & In Househ, 2015). Both the physicians and the patients have to follow elaborate regimens aimed at cultivating certain dispositions and habits of body and soul. The physicians and nurses have to follow a set of duties that include being learned, well mannered, properly attired and moderate in behaviors. Similarly, patients are required to be truthful and obedient so that they may benefit from the services provided by healthcare professionals.
In the medical sector, persisting in costly practices that do not do anyone a conceivable good whatsoever is, as a public practice, simply perverse. Even if it would be right for private individuals uniformly to adopt a code of pointless self-sacrifice, it seems transparently wrong for the health professions to impose such sacrifices upon patients who refuse to undertake them voluntarily (In Sheikh & In Househ, 2015). However, that choice is an easy one if it highly benefits the patients. Preference utilitarianism subsumes hedonic utilitarianism if one assumes patients ordinarily actually prefer to experience pleasure from the medical support provided and avoid pain. Welfare utilitarianism subsumes preference utilitarianism, if one assumes that promoting people’s welfare interests will ordinarily lead to higher levels of preference satisfaction in the future.
The present system of the Saudi Arabia health sector is committed to increase its health-care spending, but in the longer term, the government would like to become regulators mainly in the private health-care sector, with the Ministry of Health providing only primary care and funding secondary and tertiary care for the poor.
References
In Sheikh, M., In Mahamoud, A., & In Househ, M. (2015). Transforming public health in
developing nations.