Duty of healthcare practitioners to complete treatment: Scenario

• A state hospital purchases two state of the art oncology machines that can each treat 100 patients a day. The purchase includes a five year service contract to ensure that the machines operate properly. At the end of the five year service contract the director of health, who is a qualified doctor, refuses to renew the contract unless the manufacturers make a contribution to the dominant political party. Nobody else in the country is qualified to service the machines. The machines run down and are no longer able to service cancer patients at the hospital. Hundreds of indigent cancer patients, who in the past would have been treated with the two hospital oncology machines, within two weeks of being diagnosed, now have to wait for nine months for treatment. As a result their cancer progresses from treatable to terminal and they die.

–Did the director of health act ethically and legally?  Give reasons for your answers.