Maintaining the children’s health is the parent’s primary responsibility. However, there are cases when the urgent intervention of medical professionals is required to ensure efficient treatment. When crucial medical decisions are to be made, parents often cannot access the necessity of particular treatment actions because of insufficient knowledge about healthcare. As a result, parents put their children’s lives in danger, prioritizing their own beliefs over health. Therefore, only medical professionals can assess the situation correctly and make the final decision about the child’s treatment.
From my point of view, there is only one solution for children’s health issues – the medical providers should make vital decisions for children’s health. Medical professionals can more adequately and accurately estimate the implications of the rejection and acceptance of the particular treatment actions. The practical research results showed that the parent’s refusal to vaccinate their children leads to an increased risk of developing illnesses and even fatal outcomes (Attwell et al., 2017). Some of the negative implications could have been avoided if doctors had made the decisions.
Although medical professionals should not ignore the parents’ opinions, it is essential to choose the appropriate treatment even when the parents neglect it. Parents can tell the doctor a lot of details about the children’s health, which can be helpful in diagnosing and treatment planning (Aalsma et al., 2021). Medical professionals, in turn, should be ready to justify their decision to parents and describe it understandably. As a result, doctor-parent collaboration is essential in the treatment of children. However, the final decisions that seriously affect the children’s health should be made only by the professional, not the parents.
References
Aalsma, M., Downs, S., Garbuz, T., Gilbert, A., Grout, R., & Willkinson, T. (2021). How can healthcare professionals provide guidance and support to parents of adolescents? Results from a primary care-based study. BMC Health Services Research, 21, 253–259. Web.
Attwell, K., Leaks, J., Meyer, S., Rokkas, P., & Ward, P. (2017). Vaccines reject parents’ engagement with expert systems that inform vaccination programs. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 14, 65–76. Web.