Autonomy Vs Paternalism

To properly improve Mental Health Care, first we must look toward mental health care and how Autonomy and Paternalism play a vital role when discussing the improvement of this health care service, especially for children and adolescents. Mental health care is often treated in a paternalistic type of care and often not with an autonomous viewpoint. This is primarily due to the mental state the patient is in and can result in the individual not being able to make the proper decisions to improve his or her well-being. A balance between both Paternalism and Autonomy must be regarded so that the patient receiving the care is given the best possible treatment that is equal and fair. When a patient is being treated for their mental health disorder,

(Is paternalism always practiced with parents consent)The reasoning behind this is that the true information is basically too much for people to handle (how do you know this?) so the patient is often withheld from the true and more often, the real answers. Often mental health is treated with Paternalism because it is often assumed that the patient is incapable of handling certain situations or wouldn’t make the right choices regarding his or her welfare. (is there evidence for this?) Certain information can possibly be confusing to a patient but it should be the health care professionals job to relay the information in a clear way. Patients should have the right to hear the answer to the questions and be able to make the desions they want unless they are physically or mentally impaired to the point of the information being completely misunderstood. (Bioethics Briefing use the last names and year of

In Chapter 21 case studies it discusses the right to medicine as a component of the right to health. The first paragraph states, “access to safe, effective, affordable, and quality medicines is a fundamental element of the right to health.” (Beracochea 2010). If a child is diagnosed to have a mental disorder and is medicated the parent should be able to access the medication. Access doesn’t just mean the ability to get the medication but the ability to purchase the medication granted that is affordable. This affordability is one of the challenges that people are faced with regarding mental health