The duty of care and the right to be cared for: is there a duty to treat the unvaccinated?

Duty of care Right to be cared for Supererogatory

Journal

Medicine, health care, and philosophy

ISSN: 1572-8633

Titre abrégé: Med Health Care Philos

Pays: Netherlands

ID NLM: 9815900

Informations de publication

Date de publication:
05 Jan 2024

Historique:

accepted: 26 11 2023

medline: 5 1 2024

pubmed: 5 1 2024

entrez: 5 1 2024

Statut: aheadofprint

Résumé

Vaccine hesitancy or refusal has been one of the major obstacles to herd immunity against Covid-19 in high-income countries and one of the causes for the emergence of variants. The refusal of people who are eligible for vaccination to receive vaccination creates an ethical dilemma between the duty of healthcare professionals (HCPs) to care for patients and their right to be taken care of. This paper argues for an extended social contract between patients and society wherein vaccination against Covid-19 is conceived as essential for the protection of the right of healthcare providers to be taken care of. Thus, a duty of care is only valid when those who can receive vaccination actually receive it. Whenever that is not the case, the continuing functioning of HCPs can only be perceived as supererogatory and not obligatory.

Identifiants

DOI: 10.1007/s11019-023-10186-4 PMID: 38180693

pubmed: 38180693

doi: 10.1007/s11019-023-10186-4

pii: 10.1007/s11019-023-10186-4

doi:

Types de publication

Journal Article

Langues

eng

Sous-ensembles de citation

Informations de copyright

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