Ethical issues before the received telephone call; Joe had few restaurant inspectors for the restaurant in his growing County but, due to his incompetence to check the system frequently, this led to health problems and failure in the system. He assumed that public health workers inspected and lacked the determination to check the database for inspected restaurants in Peace City, resulting in no record of inspections for Aunt Tandy's restaurant. The high chances are that these inspectors did not take enough time in the restaurant inspected.
There is ethic principle violation by Joe, the restaurant owner, the employee in charge of food preparation and restaurant inspectors (Matimba et al., 2019). Despite Joe having autonomy and authority to supervise the staff in his department and meet the goals of the Peace County Health Department, he lacked responsibility (Carman, 2016). He did not check the record of the inspection system frequently. The restaurant owner hired a new employee with no adequate training on correct food preparation. The employee in charge of food preparation did not uphold hygiene; this employee cut up the raw chicken divan, then wiped the board with the dishcloth and cut up the fruit for the fruit cup and thus transferring Salmonella bacterial from the raw chicken to the fruits. Restaurant inspector honored the principle of autonomy for Aunt Tandy by assuming that she was following correct food protection protocol and did not inspect her business, arguing that she had a positive reputation and believed which led to a failure to protect the public (Carman, 2016).
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According to the law, the principle of staff justice must prevail (Ries, 2019). Either new employee was not provided with adequate training on correct food preparation or kitchen sanitation, or Aunt Tandy assumed that he knew not to prepare raw chicken on the same cutting surface as fruits and vegetables. Still, in any case, he was accountable for his action of the salmonella poisoning outbreak and the harm to children and their grandmother. The employee did not demonstrate fairness to the customer who relied on his integrity to produce safe food, thus violating the intent of the principle of justice (Ries, 2019). Besides, he was not fair to fellow employees because his action caused harm to their reputation. Aunt Tandy contributed to the damage due to a lack of diligence in protecting the public through training and engagement in food preparations. Contaminated food was served, and the reputation of Aunt Tandy's restaurant could suffer. Joe did not review the inspected restaurant by his inspectors, which contributed to the violation of justice (Ries, 2019). Joe held a position of responsibility for the safety of all restaurants in the County and could have prevented the outbreak of Salmonella.
Joe's profession was in danger because he could lose his job due to Salmonella's surprise. Someone accountable for the salmonella poisoning outbreak will hold by the health department director. Despite the challenges Joe was facing staff shortages, he was in charge and had the authority and autonomy to make decisions for the safety of all restaurants in the County.
As a health professional, I would meet the goals of the Health Department and adequately supervise the staff in the department to ensure the protection of the public. To achieve this, I would enhance inspection in all restaurants in the area and ensure kitchen sanitation and correct food preparation protocol is observed.
References
Carman, N. (2016). Healthcare Law & Ethics.
Egener, B. E., Mason, D. J., McDonald, W. J., Okun, S., Gaines, M. E., Fleming, D. A., ... & Andresen, M. L. (2017). The charter on professionalism for health care organizations. Academic Medicine , 92 (8), 1091.
Matimba, A., Chimatira, A., Kuguyo, O., January, J., Mupambireyi, Z., Marimbe-Dube, B., ... & Kangwende, A. (2019). Understanding Ethical, Legal and Societal Issues (ELSIs) in Human Biobanking and Genomics for Research and Healthcare in Zimbabwe: The Genomics Inheritance Law Ethics and Society (GILES) initiative. AAS Open Research , 2 (1), 1.
Ries, N. (2019). Advance planning for healthcare and research participation: law, ethics, and practice (Doctoral dissertation, University of Newcastle).
