Ethical and Legal Issues in Nursing PDF
12 Pages3258 Words378 Views
Added on 2021-06-17
Ethical and Legal Issues in Nursing PDF
Added on 2021-06-17
ShareRelated Documents
Running head: ETHICAL AND LEGAL ISSUES IN NURSINGETHICAL AND LEGAL ISSUES IN NURSINGName of the student:Name of the university:Author note:
1ETHICAL AND LEGAL ISSUES IN NURSINGIntroduction:Ethics is one of the fundamental aspects of nursing. It is expected of all individual nursesto respect their patients, maintain the dignity of the patients and at the same time protect therights of the patients. Nurses are expected to develop an environment that is based on mutualtrust and respect between the healthcare professionals and the patients. Researchers are of theopinion that patients entrust their autonomy as well as dignity on the healthcare professionals andtherefore, nurses are expected to guard their privacy, thereby listen to the concerns and therebyconsider the wishes of the clients that remain concerned with the care they receive (Hallowayand Galvin 2016). This assignment will thereby show how breaching of the principle of ethicscan result in different negative effects resulting in affecting the morale of patient and trustrelationship with the professionals.Legal issues:Privacy can be defined as the right of individuals in keeping their own health informationprivate. On the other hand, confidentiality can be defined as the duty of anyone who is entrustedwith particular health data and information of the patient for keeping that information safe,private, secure and not share with anyone. Researchers are of the opinion that patientconfidentiality is indeed one of the most significant bioethical principle of medicine andhealthcare. Protection of the private details of the service users is not only an important aspect ofmoral respect but is also significant to retain the important bond of trust between the healthcareprofessionals as well as the individual patients (Mallari et al. 2016). The ethical duty ofconfidentiality mainly refers to the obligation of an individual as well as the organisation forsafeguarding the entrusted information. The maintenance of confidentiality is mainly seen to
2ETHICAL AND LEGAL ISSUES IN NURSINGinclude obligations that would help to protect information from the unauthorised access, use,disclosure, loss, modification or theft. The national Privacy act of 1998 is an Australian law thatmainly helps in regulating the handling of personal information about citizens of the nation.According to the law set by the Australian governmental system, personal information can bedefined as the information or an opinion about an identified individual as well as individual whois reasonably identifiable (Westrick 2016). This act is mainly seen to comprise of thirteenimportant privacy Principles. These Australian Privacy Principles are seen to set out standards,obligations, rights mainly for handling, holding, using, accessing as well as correction orpersonal information that include sensitive information. Handling of personal information inmedical research as well as healthcare sectors are also important criteria that come under thesituations. In the case study, it is seen that nursing professional named Sharni conducted anunethical as well as illegal activity by not following the legal rules that are set by not only thehealthcare department but also by the national and common law (Ramos et al. 2015). It is seenthat A patient named Carla was handled by a nursing professional who was a colleague of theprofessional named Sharni. Sharni was interested to know the reason of admission of the Carlaand therefore in an unethical way, she accessed the file of Carla and came to know that she wasadmitted due to rupture in ectopic pregnancy. She even did not only remain contented with theinformation and exposed the information to the social media sympathising with her situation.However, in the course of sympathising, she breached her confidentiality and made her healthinformation public (aliakbari et al. 2015). This breach can be well linked with the personalinformation that mainly concerns on the use or disclosure of personal information. This principlewas states that when a personal information is gained for one particular reason, the entity shouldnever use it or disclose it for another purpose. The only exception is that the patient herself
3ETHICAL AND LEGAL ISSUES IN NURSINGconsents to it. This principle was breached the professional named Sharni as the information thatwas documented for Carla’s treatment for ectopic pregnancy issue was realised on social media.Therefore, she breached the principle that can result in filing of lawsuit against her by the patient.The principle numbered 11 was also breached which was based on the security of theinformation. The staff nurse who had the information about Carla also did not conduct her workproperly as she did not ensure that the documents were secured. Even Sharni had accessed it; itwas her duty to prevent further misuse, interference or loss of the information. Therefore, it canbe seen that Carla’s information was made public, her confidentiality was breached and herhealth information was exposed (Chadwick and gallagahr 2016). The patient had not givenconsent in sharing of the information with others n the healthcare centre or even on a publicmedium like social networking sites. By the term consent in the specific area, it means that thepatient has now allowed the healthcare professionals to share them with others and had also notgiven them the permission to make it public. Therefore, the healthcare professional shouldundergo legal obligation and she should be penalised heavily for not maintaining the legalprinciples and making sensitive information private.Ethical issue:Privacy can be defined as the right or interest in controlling as well as limiting the access ofothers to oneself. Confidentiality can be defined as the duty of someone who had received certainconfidential information with trust to protect the information as well as to disclose the otherindividuals only in accordance with permissions, rules as well as laws authorising its disclosure.Consent on the other hand need to be defined as the knowledge and approval of an individualrequired for the collection and then using the information for disclosure of the personalinformation, except when inappropriate (Scruth et al. 2015). The bioethical principle of
End of preview
Want to access all the pages? Upload your documents or become a member.
Related Documents
Legal And Ethical Decision Making Reportlg...
|4
|707
|17
Ethics in Nursing: Legal and Professional Responsibilitieslg...
|10
|3151
|303
Case Study of an Ethical Dilemmalg...
|11
|2699
|243
Professional Nursing: Ethical Principles and Valueslg...
|4
|878
|429
Professional Practice Model - Nursinglg...
|5
|913
|15
Legal and Ethical Decision Making in Person Centred Carelg...
|4
|845
|17