Ethical
Name:
Institution:
Ethical
Question 1
The Administrator of BP Oil Spill Compensation Fund Kenneth Feinberg claimed that compensating mental illness and distress without physical injury would be impossible. They will be receiving complaints and claims from many people through listening and viewing media. On the other hand, the oil spill has ruined the lives of Gulf Coast Residents, and it is their right to be funded for their mental health illness consequences. A good number of resident respondents had mental health issues that resulted from the spill. Many of the Gulf Coast residents would not afford to pay for their mental health services. Most of the affected need extra support to help them adapt with the new kind of situation after the oil spill. The BP oil spill is a disaster to the Gulf Coast residents. It is predicted with certainty that there is going to be widespread human health crises in the Gulf. Its impacts are getting deadlier as time passes. It has been four years since it occurred and the rate of mentally ill patients is still on the rise. More people are being traumatized psychologically (Benoit, 2011). It has affected many people, causing mental illness and distress. This is because of excessive worry, frequent crying, overwhelming sadness, increased alcohol and substance abuse among others. The Director of BP and its top managers should take the responsibility of funding all the victims’ mental health services.
Question 2
The oil spill in the Gulf not only resulted in mental illness and distress, but it made consumers and beneficiary companies turn their backs on BP‘s brand identity. The stakeholders were the state government, Federal government, the BP Oil Company and the Environmentalists. The BP Oil spill crisis displayed a lack of ethics, regulation, corruption, lack of consistency, hypocrisy and personal gain and greed in that company (CBSNEWS, 2012). The government of U.S was also slow to respond to the crisis. This crisis exposed BP’s poor organizational skills and cultures. BP was blamed for the lack of strategy, accountability and confidence. BP did not have effective execution. The company failed to own up for its actions, and took an inappropriate judgment.
Question 6
It is clear that
BP did not have a crisis response plan in place before the worst offshore spill
happened. Having in mind that this is a predictable nightmare in their line of work,
their goal of no harm to people and no accidents does not work, and that is inexcusable.
All that matters is that BP is responsible for the mental health and distress
of the victims (Liu, 2011). BP has failed to handle the crisis. It is cutting
corners to save on cost, not considering the poor Gulf residents are suffering
because of them. The oil spill is indeed an assault on the shores and citizens
of the Gulf Region. BP should consider the planning and management of crises.
BP should be sued (McCoy et al., 2010). It is unethical for such a big company
to try to evade its responsibilities. BP is corrupt, egocentric and money minded.
It dares save on costs while innocent citizens are suffering from Posttraumatic
Stress Disorder (PTSD), major depressions among other mental illnesses. As the
oil spill slows, the mental health concerns continue to worsen. The Federal and State governments, BP Oil Company and the
other stakeholders should take responsibility. The stakeholders should stop
pointing fingers at each other; they should accept they failed, take
responsibility for their actions and save the poor citizens of the Gulf.
References:
Benoit, P. (2011). The BP oil spill. New York: Children’s Press.
CBSNEWS. (2012). Board: BP Missed the big Hazard Issues in Spill. Retrieved from http://www.cbsnews.com/news/board-bp-missed-the-big-hazard-issues-in-spill/
Liu, Y. (2011). Monitoring and Modeling the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: A record-breaking enterprise. Washington, DC: American Geophysical Union.
McCoy, M. A., Salerno, J. A., Institute of Medicine (U.S.), United States., & Assessing the Human Health Effects of the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill. (2010). A The Federal government, State government, BP Oil Company and the other stakeholders should hold their Assessing the effects of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on human health: A summary of the June 2010 workshop. Washington, D.C: National Academies Press.