Open AccessCorruption in the public health sector in South Africa: A global bioethical perspective
Author(s) -
Riaan Rheeder,
AUTHOR_ID
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
south african journal of bioethics and law
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1999-7639
DOI - 10.7196/sajbl.2021.v14i3.693
Subject(s) - bioethics , language change , perspective (graphical) , abuse of power , power (physics) , declaration , political science , human rights , public health , environmental ethics , sociology , law , medicine , nursing , politics , art , philosophy , physics , literature , quantum mechanics , artificial intelligence , computer science
It is clear that corruption as the abuse of power is an enormous bioethical issue in the public health sector in SA, but as a challenge, it has not elicited much discussion from a global bioethical perspective. The Universal Declaration of Bioethics and Human Rights (UDBHR) on corruption considers three matters. First, the existence of corruption as a problem of power is recognised in the health environment and condemned (article 18). Second, corruption is indicated as an immoral phenomenon that harms the interests of the patient (article 4), ignores vulnerable people (article 8) and neglects social responsibility (article 14). Third, it can be concluded that the UDBHR expresses the opinion that corruption has to be combated by a process of ethical decision-making (article 18.2-3), the use of ethics committees (article 19) and ethics education (article 23.1).