Corporate Social Responsibility Case Study

Introduction

In March 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that there is a major Ebola outbreak in western Africa. The disease then rapidly spread to the neighboring countries. As of October 2014, Teresa Romero, a Spanish nurse, contracted Ebola after caring for a patient who had been repatriated from West Africa. This was the first case of the Ebola to occur outside of Africa.

However, nurses in Carlos III Hospital in Madrid, the health centre where Ebola patient Teresa Romero is being treated, are refusing to work because safety conditions are not adequate.

Elvira Gonzalez, provincial vice-secretary of the SAE nurses’ union states that “There are members of staff who are canceling their contracts so that they don’t have to enter rooms with Ebola cases.” and “a number of nurses and technicians have formally resigned from their posts at the regional health department, while others have refused to treat patients under current conditions.”

However the government and hospital argued that they provided them with proper training and equipment. Reuters UK mentioned in the article that “The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, which inspected the hospital where Romero is being treated, concluded that measures there were of a very high quality.”

Therefore in this essay, those nurses who are refusing to work with Ebola patients and those who already resigned will be discussed whether it is ethical or unethical behavior based on the theories of philosophers.

Aristotle – The Virtue

The teleology that Aristotle explains is that everything happens for a reason, and he defines the ultimate goal of human being as happiness. He mentioned that to achieve happiness, people should have virtues or arête. It is simply whatever that allows an object to fulfill its function. If we apply this virtue to the nurses, it is doing and living well as a nurse, which means in other words, helping and caring of the sick. Aristotle says that...