The Law Ethics Professional Guidelines in Nursing

This assignment discusses the ethical laws and violations in nursing, focusing on a case study. It explores the transgressions and interventions to avoid such situations and the legal actions that may be imposed.

Running head: THE LAW ETHICS PROFESSIONAL GUIDELINES IN NURSING
THE LAW ETHICS PROFESSIONAL GUIDELINES IN NURSING
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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Introduction:
In the traditional health care setting, for the nursing facility, ethical judgements take
place occasionally and sometimes the nurse might witness ethical problems. In contrast, the
nurse takes ethical decisions in action for the care delivery, helping and patient support in
preparation of a proper care plan and given that safe patient healthcare (Butts & Rich, 2019).
There are total six ethical values which occurs frequently for the nurse; Autonomy,
Beneficence, Nonmaleficence, Justice, Veracity and Fidelity. Privacy and security of patients
are closely tangled, focusing on law and ethics. Privacy protection and security requirements
rely on trust between the patients and the nursing facilities and healthcare professionals
(Bayoumi, Kamel & Fathalla, 2017). In this assignment, the ethical laws and its violations
will be discussed focusing on a case study. The case study is about a registered nursing
student, Dan, who is placed at My Local Hospital in Smith place, another registered nurse
named Jane and a blind patient, Fred who has some infection in his buttock. Dan is found
taking pictures of his buttock and advertising it to his friends and violating privacy of Fred.
Jane is found taking medicines without any supervision from the departmental medicine room
and due to her hangover she was working in unconscious state in the healthcare service. The
case study status about some situations where these ethics and laws were violated. The
assignment will also discuss about the transgressions and interventions to avoid such
situations and legal actions that will be imposed.
Discussion:
All of the transgressions and/or potential transgressions which have occurred in this case
study

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In the above case study, it was clear that Jane was violating the ethical practice or was
going against the code of conduct, which has to be followed by the registered nurse (RN).
Various transgression was discovered in the case study. Transgression is defined as an act or
offence, which goes against the rule or law of nursing practice or code of conduct (Raby,
2018). Different ethical values or law is set up the government as code of ethics, which a
registered nurse must follow in their individual nursing practice. This code of ethics will
highlight the ethical responsibilities, commitments and responsibility of the registered nurse.
The nurse will understand the quality of practice, which is required by the nurse towards
competent, ethical and safe nursing care (Snelling, 2016). The Code of Ethics for Registered
Nurse is composed of eight different values, which is most significant for ethical nursing
practice. Transgressions performed by Jane in this case study included the violation of ethical
issues stated below (Cashin et al., 2017):
 Respect for person- Dan violated this ethical principle by not respecting the patient’s
confidentiality. The patient was blind and could not see that Dan took couple of
pictures of the patient’s wound in order to show it to his colleagues and friends. Dan
violated this major ethical principle leading to transgression.
 Fidelity- This ethical principle states that a nurse should be true and faithful towards
the patient following their professional responsibility to provide a high quality care.
Dan violated this principle as he was intentionally chatting with the patient just to
click her picture and his investigator left the room early handing over the situation to
Dan, which was highly unprofessional.
 Accountability- In this case study, Jane was violating this ethical principle. As Nurse
Jane as suffering from hangover she could not even think properly and Dan has to

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remind her of every patient and their medication, which was highly unprofessional as
she was herself responsible for the accounted patient.
How does it violate the Australian Registered Nurse Standards for Practice, the Code of
Ethics for Nurses and the Code of Conduct for Nurses and justification for the choices and
by providing evidence and/or examples from the literature?
According to Australian Registered Nurse standards for practice, the code of ethics was
violated by the nurse in this case study. The Code of Ethics for Nurses in Australia was
developed in Australia following the nursing profession (NMBA, 2019). It is applicable to all
the levels of nurses outlining the commitment of the nurses towards their profession relating
to protect, respect, and promote the fundamental rights of the patient (Ralph, Birks &
Chapman, 2015). The above transgression lead to violation of the major code of ethics stating
that “Nurses value ethical management of information”.
This code of ethics involves both integrity and professionalism by respecting the privacy
and confidentiality of the patient without compromising on the safety or health of the patient.
Any personal information or data cannot be shared without an informed consent from the
patient or without their knowledge (Ingham, 2017). Ethical management of information states
that it is mandatory for the nurses to patient’s record and information to provide them with
best quality of care. Without any authorised information or consent, the nurses should not
disclose any personal information of the patient as it would violate the privacy and
confidentiality act of the patient. Irrespective of the medium, any type of data disclosure will
lead to an offensive act by the nurse, which can even result in withdrawing of their licence of
nursing practice (Johnstone, 2015).

4THE LAW ETHICS PROFESSIONAL GUIDELINES IN NURSING
In this scenario, Dan violated the code of ethics stating the ethical management of
information. He did not respect the privacy of the patient as he discretely click pictures of the
patient wound to display in front of his friends and colleagues, which was highly
unprofessional and violated the code of ethical management. Later the nurse used social
media as a platform to display the image of the patient without the patients’ knowledge and
consent. According to Westrick (2016) such ethical violation give rise to various legal and
disciplinary action for dismissing the student right of nursing practice program. This program
deals with the breaches, which lead to misuse of patient’s confidentiality by releasing any
inappropriate or private information about the patient. In this scenario, Dan took an
inappropriate picture of patient’s buttock without the consent of the patient or any prior
knowledge from the authority and posted it on a social media (Facebook) hence falling under
the violation of legal and disciplinary act. The major violation surrounding in the healthcare
sector was drinking, clicking inappropriate photographs and HIPPA violations (Scruth, Pugh,
Adams & Foss-Durant, 2015). Thus, it was clear that Dan was violating the code of ethics
hence, leading to various disciplinary action.
Dan also violated the code of ethics stating, “Nurses value the diversity of people”. In this
code of ethics, it is clearly mentioned that the nurses should appreciate and provide best care
to the patient irrespective of the background of the patient. Any language of cultural
background should not influence the nurse in providing proper and effective care to the
patient (Daly, Speedy & Jackson, 2017). In this scenario, Dan took advantage of the patients’
background, as the patient was blind and could not see what the nurse was doing to her.
According to Price, 2015 the patient with physical illness such as deaf and dumb or blind

5THE LAW ETHICS PROFESSIONAL GUIDELINES IN NURSING
need proper communication regarding the type of care provided to them. The author also
stated that any violation in blind patient leads to some major law violation, which can even
lead to lifetime cancelling of nursing licence with other legal and disciplinary action. Hence,
in this scenario, Dan was intentionally chatting with the patient so that he could picture of the
patient without communicating that he was taking a picture. His investigator who would take
the charge of this case knew this activity of Dan.
The possible legal and ethical future implications, for the student nurse or registered
nurse, of this behaviour:
The safety of a patient’s data is a foremost ethical and legal substance in the
healthcare division. The conferences among a doctor and a patient and other health care
providers must be retained confidential, as this evidence is about somebody’s health
condition. There are various laws which governs the nursing and healthcare system about the
rules and ethics of providing a better and safer healthcare (Kangasniemi, Pakkanen &
Korhonen, 2015).
 The Australian Medical Association (AMA) Code of Ethics necessitates medical
experts to continue their practice by keeping a patient’s confidentiality in mind
(Brotherton, Kao & Crigger, 2016).
 The Commonwealth Privacy Act, which relates to every healthcare services which
provide treatment to people regarding the laws and ethics of delivering proper care
(Garner, 2018).
 The Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002, this law laws strictly
restricting the sharing of information of a patient in the healthcare system without the

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permission of the patient involved, and in various regions, breaking of confidentiality
expanse to a criminal offence (Nelson & Staggers, 2016).
An array of laws applies to the loading of health information of a patient. The nursing
facilities should follow:
 The procedure of providing access to the patient information to individuals authorized
for the patients wellbeing and treatment process.
 security actions in order to prevent unauthorised admittance to the patient private
records
 proper measures for keeping the patient information in a manner where the identity of
the patient is not visible from the appearance of the record, such as storing them using
identification codes
 when the records are not of use, there should be strategies or plans to destroy the
information of the patients.
 Training the interns and facilities about the ethical codes and law regarding nursing
and patient’s health, so that in future they do not misuse their abilities and violate any
kind of laws (Grace, 2017).
For the specific issues chosen above, what should the student nurse have done?
From about mentioned transgression related to the provided case study, where Dan
violated the ethical laws and confidentiality of Fred was disrupted. He should not have
clicked the picture of Fred’s buttock and share it to other fellow members. He disrespected
the disability of Fred and violated the confidentiality code of ethic by sharing a personal

7THE LAW ETHICS PROFESSIONAL GUIDELINES IN NURSING
image of his to others. He should have clicked a picture if it was for treatment procedure and
records. Even if required, a nurse and the other facilities should take permission from the
patient even if he is blind or not in a state of taking proper decisions. They should take
permission from their associated family members or other stakeholders if the patient is not
capable enough to take decision. Next situation is where Jane took medicine from the
dispensary without anyone’s consultancy or prescription. Even if someone belongs to a
healthcare facility, one cannot use the medicine without supervision of a doctor. She should
have consulted any superior facility. Then because of her hangover and unsupported health
condition, she was not able to work and was not in her stable state to take care of the patient,
still she was working with half of her mind. She should have informed about her condition to
some superior or should have opted for a day off. As because of her careless behaviour and
unfavourable heath, a major problem could have happened. It may have happened that Dan
may not be able to violate the ethical codes if Jane was in her full form and conscious state.
Conclusion:
In order to conclude, it can be stated that, violation of the ethics and law related to
health care is a legal crime. It may lead to various sever consequences for a patient. Nursing
Schools and healthcare centres need strict policies that will clearly institute prospects and the
penalties of misapplication of social media platforms or maybe violation of any kind of rules
and ethics of healthcare system. One must not misuse of the abilities and work they have
been provided with as it might cause a serious issue for the patient and themselves also. This
may harm or leave a bad impact on patient’s health or confidentiality (NMBA, 2019). Proper
legal lessons should be provided to the facilities for further management for both registered
nursing students and other nursing programs. The healthcare system should start imposing
stick actions towards such violations of ethical codes, in order to provide a better care and

8THE LAW ETHICS PROFESSIONAL GUIDELINES IN NURSING
treatment to the patient in need, without any discrimination based on their disabilities and
their disease.

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