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HLSC220 Health Care Ethics - Assignment

   

Added on  2020-05-04

12 Pages3376 Words349 Views
Running head: ETHICAL DILEMMAETHICAL DILEMMAName of the student:Name of the university:Author note:

1ETHICAL DILEMMAIntroduction:Ethical dilemma is common occurrence in present day health care. Nurses need to beknowledgeable about the ethical principles, ethical theories, professional codes of conducts,codes of ethics and others to ensure safe practice and save themselves form legal obligation(Preshaw et al., 2016). A case study is chosen where the nurses had provided restraints in theaggressive patient leading to clashes between beneficence, non-maleficence. Theory ofutilitarianism was also not followed. Several codes of ethics and professional conducts were alsobreached. The present assignments will gradually unfold how such occurrences had taken placeand what a nurse in such situation should have done.Identification of the ethical issues:In the case study 2, the nurse named Camilla was assigned to care for a patient named Sam whowas suffering from acute abdominal pain. When she was trying to measure his vital signs, shewas prevented by the patient who was quite agitated. He violently pushed the nurse away andwas not cooperating with her. He was answering irrationally and was continuously calling out.When the team arrived and witnessed his aggressive behaviour and verbal abuses along with histrying to pull his cannula out, they decided to restrain him. Although Camilla was apprehensiveof the negative outcome that would result from the restraints, yet the nurse in charge Juliainsisted to follow her orders as there was no workforce on the shift to handle the patienteffectively.The case represented a scenario where the nurse was torn between two ethical situations. On onehand, she had the duty to maintain the safe practice of the patient to ensure that he gets well andher interventions have positive outcome on his health. On the other hand, she had to maintain the

2ETHICAL DILEMMAorders of her senior to restrain the patient as he was being a threat to the safety of the staffs onthe ward and also to himself. To prevent any adverse events to occur on the ward, he wasrestrained so that his treatment could be continued without any interruption from him. Howeverto do that, the nurses had to breach the ethical principles of autonomy and dignity as informedconsents were not taken from the patient and his rights and human dignity was not paidimportance to. Hence, here rises an ethical dilemma. The nurse named Camilla was facingdilemma where she was torn apart between her duties to maintain safe and effective practice forthe patient to make him get well but at the same time was not being able to take informedconsent of the patient for maintaining his dignity and autonomy (due to his aggressive behaviourand violence exhibited by him).A clear ethical perspective on the issues:While working with the patient, there arose many situations for which the nurse was not beingable to initiate her treatments effectively. Measuring the vital signs of the patient was veryimportant in order to understand the physiological condition of the body (Mertz & Stretch,2014). Following the vital signs and then determining the treatment requirements were extremelyimportant to tackle his abdominal pain. The responsibility of the nurse is to provide the safest,evidence based and person centered care to the patient so that his symptoms are overcome. Theethical principles of beneficence and non maleficence always guide the nurse to provide thesafest care to patients. The theory of Utilitarianism states that those care practices will beconsidered right which has the best outcome on the patient health (Eren, 2014). However, inorder to do so, an uninterrupted care was very important which would ensure quality life.However, it was not possible as the patient was violent and aggressive and was not allowing thenurse to actively conduct her assessment which was delaying his process of treatment. Therefore

3ETHICAL DILEMMAthe nurses decided to restrain him and contribute his treatment. However, this was an unethicalapproach as present healthcare system guidelines instructs the importance of the maintenance ofthe principle of autonomy and dignity and asking for the patients’ permission before applyingany interventions or restrains on him (Sinclair, Papps & Maeshall, 2016). This should be kept inmind also that the patient was not in a stable state of mental health for which he was not beingable to answer rationally and did not understand the negative aspect of his aggression. Still, bythe rulebook, asking for dignity and informed consent are important which were breached by theCamilla and her senior nurse. Therefore this led to an ethical situation where Camilla was notbeing able to understand what actions to take as he was aware that restraints may also havephysical harm to the patient and his aggression could increase. However providing effective careby restraining was also important. An alternative perspective to your own:Critical thinking and proper decision making are two important characters which need to bepossessed by every nurse in her professional practice to ensure that she is providing the best careto the patient with the best approach that would ensure patient satisfaction. It was indeed truethat the nurse was facing issues in carrying out her assessments of the vital signs. The patientwas aggressive and violent which proposed a threat to the patient and also to the healthcareprofessionals. It was very indeed important for the nurse to carry on with the treatment just forthe patient benefits. The principles of beneficence and non maleficence ensure the proper caringof the patient by the best service (Park et al., 2016). However, it does not necessarily mean thatin order to maintain the two principles, another principle of autonomy and dignity needs to beavoided. Providing the right to the patient to allow the nurses to carry on the treatment is veryimportant (Margettic et al., 2014). If a more skilled nurse would have been present in the ward,

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