Bioethics and corruption: a personal struggle

The author attempts to give a general picture of corruption, especially in the area of healthcare. Corruption ranges from fraud, through deceit, bribery and dehumanisation, to immeasurable moral decay. As a bioethicist who has challenged corruption in various ways, the author approaches this worldwide plague mainly on the basis of his personal experience. He does not offer a recipe for successfully combating corruption, but tries to provide some ways and means to fight immorality without self-defeat. Bioethics is not a discipline whose task is to investigate, expose, or punish corrupt people. A number of agencies exist for this "noble" job. Nevertheless, an ethics teacher should not be completely indifferent to obvious and harmful immoral behaviour, regardless of his/her personal compulsions. It is not the "patient rights" that threaten the prestige of the medical profession; it is rather the bad apples that infiltrate the moral mission of this esteemed work. It seems that the hardest challenges in the struggle against corruption are bad laws-laws that provide loopholes and immunity to immoral dealings. In a stable, strong democracy, morally unfounded laws can, and will be changed. Where real democracy exists, they would not even have come into effect.