Autonomy In Health And Social Care Essay

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According to Singer (2011), autonomy refers to a person to live their lives according to their own decisions. Seedhouse (2009) has a different perspective, as he considers autonomy as a quality; the better quality the autonomy, the more the person is able to do. When it comes to healthcare and maintaining health status, there are two types of autonomy. These are creating autonomy and respecting autonomy. Creating autonomy refers to any work aimed at enabling an individual and improving their capacity to achieve their goals and to do things. Respecting autonomy, on the other hand, refers to respect for rights of individuals and the right to determine their own lives (Palfreyman, 2011). According to Seedhouse (2009) there comes a time when enabling …show more content…

This was evident in the privacy case. Originally the health centre wanted take photographs of its employee and daughter as part of their health promotion to enable individuals (create autonomy). After the photographs were taken employee told the health centre that she did not want it to use any of the photographs of her, however, she was willing for the health centre to use her daughter's photograph on a poster for a year (employees right). A couple of years later, the healthcare centre continued to use the daughter's photograph (past the one year time period that was given by the employee) on an invitation to an event at the health centre, on a postcard promoting the health centre within the community. Additionally, the employee discovered that the health centre had produced a book that contained a photograph of her and her daughter, including their names, in conjunction with a discussion about health problems within the community. This case goes to show how the health centre failed to respect the employee's

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