For about a year, an inner city health clinic had a grant
to work with trauma victims. The grant paid for medical and mental health
clinicians to meet with community members who had experienced trauma firsthand
or had witnessed a traumatic event. As part of the program, funds were used to
purchase subway passes for the victims to travel to and from the clinic if they
could not afford to do so on their own.
The program ended about a year ago after the funding
ended. Many of the medical and mental health staff remain at the clinic tending
to other clients.
When a clinician was cleaning out a file cabinet drawer
recently, she came across an envelope with about a half-dozen pre-paid subway
passes that had been used as part of the program. The passes were still useable
on the subway, but the trauma clients for whom they were intended were no
longer being seen in the program.
There are still clients for the regular medical and
mental health services who would benefit from the cards as a way to offset the
cost of getting to and from their appointments. But the clinician is not
certain what to do with the cards or how appropriate it would be to simply
offer them to clients in need. Some clinicians who use public transportation to
get to and from work might also find the subway passes useful.
"Would it be wrong to simply let my colleagues know
they are available and let them decide how to use them?" she asks.
The passes were never intended for the clinicians at the
clinic, so it would be wrong to simply start using them for personal travel.
Now that the trauma program has ended, the purpose for which the subway passes
were originally intended has also ended. Nevertheless, many of the clients of
that trauma program still visit the clinic and some could still use the
financial assistance provided by a free pass.
"The passes are not reimbursable," writes the
clinician. "It seems a waste to let them just sit in a drawer."
Indeed it does, but using resources for something other
than what they were specifically intended for without the original funder
knowing seems wrong. It might not add up to a great deal of money and no one
would be re-selling or using the passes for personal gain, but the intention of
the grant was clearly laid out.
The right thing indeed would be to find a way to put the
prepaid subway passes to good use. Since the funder of the original grant still
exists, perhaps the best first plan of action would be to contact that funder
and ask for it to consider reallocating any remaining funds left on the subway
passes to clients of the clinic who are in need. Or they could be more specific
and indicate that the passes would only be used for clients deemed to be trauma
survivors. If the funder signs off on this, the clinician and her colleagues
can move ahead without hesitation to put the passes to good use.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net.
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(c) 2019 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.
1 comment:
While the answer may be the most moral, ethical one it is over thought. Give the passes to the clients who were part of the trauma program.
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