Treating patients fairly and ensuring equitable access to care describes which ethical principle?

• A. Justice
• B. Autonomy
• C. Beneficence
• D. Fidelity

Answer: (A)

Justice in healthcare means treating people fairly and ensuring equitable access to care. It involves impartial, non-discriminatory decisions about who receives services and how resources are distributed, with the aim of reducing disparities across populations. Equitable access recognizes that fairness may require different supports for different individuals to achieve similar health outcomes, rather than giving everyone exactly the same thing.

Autonomy focuses on each person’s right to make their own medical decisions, which is about individual choice rather than how care is distributed. Beneficence is about acting in the patient’s best interest to promote well-being, but it emphasizes the individual’s good rather than the fairness of access across all patients. Fidelity concerns keeping promises and maintaining trust. So the description of fairness and equitable access aligns best with justice.