Patient Dignity and Rights: A Nursing Perspective in Australia

This editorial discusses the issue of patient dignity and rights hampered due to nurses’ misconduct in Australia and how these issues can be addressed in nursing profession to realise the aspiration of common good.

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Author’s Note

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This open editorial is about patient dignity and rights hampered due to nurses’
misconduct in Australia. It is the local and global issue. The misconduct of nurse has impact on
the common good. Thus editorial discusses how these issues can be addressed in nursing
profession to realise the aspiration of common good.
Patient rights and dignity is the main concept in health care. As per the Australian NMBA
professional standards, code of conduct and code of ethics the nurse must maintain the patients’
rights and dignity. The Australian Nursing and midwifery council emphasise on protecting the
patient dignity and respect. Patients demand dignity and respect from the health care workers.
According to World Health Organisation dignity is every patents right. There are number of
government documents throughout the world that highlights the patient’s dignity and respect
during treatment and care process. This effects the common good (Raee et al., 2017).
Respect and dignity are the abstract concepts and are driven by social; and cultural
factors. Personal research indicated that these concepts have pivotal implications for the health
care professionals. These concepts are assumed to be understood by the nurses. It is questionable
if nurses have the clear understanding of these abstract concepts and importance of it in nursing
profession (Raee et al., 2017).
A news article from the year highlighted an incident in the Adelaide nursing home. A
nurse was found to intentionally suffocate an 89 year old man. He was dementia patient and was
unable to walk or talk. The nurse’s maleficence was detected by the camera installed in the
patient’s ward. The nurse was Corey Lucas who was later convicted of the serious assault (ABC
News, 2017). A general response to this incident was announcement from the “Australian nurses
union”. The announcement states that the hospital nurses and the aged care nurses will be

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regulated in the same manner and under same system. According to the Elizabeth Dabars of
“Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation” elder patients are eager for acceptance and
compassion. They will lack trust in professional carers if they do not get respect (Henderson et
al., 2016). In Australia the internal medicine wards and the intensive care units received lowest
score in protecting the patient’s privacy and dignity. The patient’s independence was not
maintained in these wards (Raee, Abedi, & Shahriari, 2017).
Literature review highlights there are several incidents where patient’s respect and
dignity is not mentioned. According to Scanlon et al. (2016) nurses are not practicing to their full
scope of practice as jurisdictional restrictions are the main barriers. Undergraduate nurses in
Australia in most cases were found to provide care that was not culturally respectful (Ramjan,
Hunt, & Salamonson, 2016). Many nurses in Australia were found to be stigmatisers. Nurses
were found to show negative attitude towards the patients with psychiatric illness (Reavley et al.,
2014). This hampers the therapeutic relationship between nurse and the patients. Further the
respect and dignity violations were attributes to ineffective communication skills.
It can be concluded from the personal experience and literature review that nurses need to
have high self-awareness and be sensitive to the patient’s needs. There is a need to improve the
devalued image of the nurses in the eyes of the patients. It can be done so by stringent
monitoring and regulation of nurses (Scanlon et al., 2016). There is a need of structured care
pathway for nurses. Regular feedback and surveys are essential to indentify the nurses’
challenges in maintaining the patient dignity and respect. There is a need to indentify the
education and training needs to address such issues in future profession. Leadership and effective
communication (verbal and nonverbal) skills are essential. There is a need of workshops and
systematic courses on the subject of dignity and respect.

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The personal opinion is to address the need of more nurses in the aged care sector. An
effective way to prevent the negligence towards patients is legislating mandatory nurse-patient
ratio. There is increasing population of aged care and there is a trend towards higher acuity
levels. Family members too should take action against violation of human rights. A formal
complaint must be lodged by the patients and fellow nurses on any incident of violating the
patient right to dignity. It is their right to protect their loved ones. The particular interest of the
stakeholders must be patient safety.

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References
ABC News, (2017). Aged care workers should be registered like hospital nurses; union says, p.
1. Retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-27/aged-care-cuts-elder-abuse-
need-senate-inquiry-probe-xenophon/7663650
Henderson, J., Willis, E., Xiao, L., Toffoli, L., & Verrall, C. (2016). Nurses' perceptions of the
impact of the aged care reform on services for residents in multi‐purpose services and
residential aged care facilities in rural Australia. Australasian Journal on Ageing.
Raee, Z., Abedi, H., & Shahriari, M. (2017). Nurses’ commitment to respecting patient
dignity. Journal of education and health promotion, 6.
Ramjan, L., Hunt, L., & Salamonson, Y. (2016). Predictors of negative attitudes toward
Indigenous Australians and a unit of study among undergraduate nursing students: A
mixed-methods study. Nurse education in practice, 17, 200-207.
Reavley, N. J., Mackinnon, A. J., Morgan, A. J., & Jorm, A. F. (2014). Stigmatising attitudes
towards people with mental disorders: A comparison of Australian health professionals
with the general community. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 48(5),
433-441.
Scanlon, A., Cashin, A., Bryce, J., Kelly, J. G., & Buckely, T. (2016). The complexities of
defining nurse practitioner scope of practice in the Australian context. Collegian, 23(1),
129-142.