Healthcare Ethics: Safeguarding Patients' Welfare - Essay Sample

Introduction

Various ethical problems are facing the health industry. Healthcare ethics involves the formulation of well researched and scrutiny of the patient's beliefs and wishes regarding views of their health. Generally, the core welfare of the patients it's the forerunner of the healthcare industry. The need for the industry to safeguard their patients has created the need for the formation of an ethical committee.

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Ethical issues that may arise concerning the patient's health are numerous. Inevitably patients suffer the aftermath of errors made in their care. One major problem is the protection of patient's rights or confidentiality. Nurses have trouble determining whether it's appropriate to disclose certain information without the consent of the patient if another life could be in jeopardy. A patient has the right to confidentiality, and individual medical data should be private.

Disclosure of such information is in the hands of the patient unless he or she gives consent, then it should be a private matter. Research indicates that this problem arises due to a deficiency of staff. Inadequacy in terms of team hinders ethical standards of professional practice achievement (Boswell, 2018)

The barrier of understaffing inhibits nurses in meeting their primary responsibilities, including protection of the rights of patients, easement of pain, and maintaining their integrity.

Needed intervention by the government and the hospitals to ensure the nursing practice is well resourced to cater to the needs of all patients. Legislative laws come in handy where the government is urgent to pass the nursing staff rations to one that can handle all responsibilities. Protection of patients' rights is one of the vital tenets of the nursing profession. Secondly, it's a challenge for nurses to distribute the resources at hand to needy patients.

This is an ethical problem as the resolution to pick those that are in needy is entirely upon them. Like in the case of determining whether a family's plea of placing a member into life support.

Nurses get into a dilemma because they have to consider the cost of the machines and the good the tools bring in saving lives. Health resources in most countries are distributed majorly in specialized hospitals that are primary and preventive care left to disadvantage. Seemingly in other countries, funds are directed towards acute live-saving care leaving long term and mental care underfunded.

We also have cases where a patients religious believes prove a hindrance to attaining health care, as in the case of a patient's refusal to blood transfusion (Grace, 2017). As per autonomy ethical principles, a nurse should concur with the patient's decision. The nurse should offer detailed advice on the risks of refusing the transfusion to the patient. In gaining consent, nurses get advised to respect the dignity of human beings and act within the legal confines of dictated law.

Also, nurses face difficulties in feeding terminally ill patients, especially those holding a part in abortions. The solution is, nurses are to demand to display competence in their field of work to avert injuries or pain to patients. Nevertheless, nurses are to act within the patient's right to decide. (American Nurses Association, 2016).One other primary concern is patient relations. Nurses are not allowed into in the course of offering treatment to engage in any personal relationship with the patients.

Nurses get advised to be professional and only deal with the patient's welfare and deliverance of better services. A patient receives deemed vulnerable when under medical observation, and hence he or she is unable to defend themselves. One other major problem is patient safety, which entails the physical, emotional, and social well-being of the patients. The nurse's or physician's core goal should, at all-time, be to take care of the patient's safety. Conflict of interest is another vital concern.

The dispute mainly occurs between the co-relation between the healthcare team and the pharmaceutical, medical equipment and the Company that distributes those pieces of equipment. The solution gathered is that efforts should get made in formulating clear policies on the ethical issue in all hospitals. All hospital workers should selflessly work towards unity.

Another issue is on informed consent, and nurses should aid in breaking down the forms of consent to the patients and families.

The related parties should well comprehend the medical terms in the ways before they sign the forms. The topic of the opposite sex has also become an ethical issue in healthcare. Importantly, Islamic countries face this problem on a large scale. It is worth noting that in Islam, rules of dealing with an opposite-sex apply, whereby a male doctor is only allowed to examine a female patient only when no female doctors are available.

The issue of life is also a vital ethical issue in healthcare. It is a sensitive issue as one has to decide the fate of a patient, whether they live or die. It is one that comes with controversy more so between the family members and the medical team. The issue has become even more difficult given the amount of money used in purchasing the equipment and supplies. Consequently, the issue has raised the presumption of a patient's life.

One other major problem is the health care team. Feelings towards each other more, so disagreements, disputes, and even quarrels among themselves cause havoc in delivering better care. A solution suggested curbing the problem is defining job descriptions to all health care team. Negligence and malpractice is also a world healthcare issue. Health care providers should be careful in diagnosing their patients and ensuring that they deliver the right dosages, injections, and care to their patients.

A patient that suffers this ethical dilemma is allowed by the law to sue to recover their losses. It is advisable for healthcare providers to ensure that they have covered all their bases when delivering their services. Nurses should strive to give detailed relevant information on their condition and the ways to cope. Research indicates that certain information can hasten recovery while others may worsen the situation of patients mostly after surgeries.

Hospitals should place nurses under in patient where nurses will have full responsibility of ensuring the right information is availed to the patients. The move will also place the nurses in position of advocating for the patient preventing them to make wrong decisions from in adequate information. Furthermore it is worth to note that involvement in most treatment decisions bears better fruits for patients.

The issue of elderly people, should be handled with great care. Nurses should act to the benefit of them. Ethics of privatization whereby health operators that are supposed to offer health services in governmental sectors also apply their trade in private sectors. This is an issue as their focus is divided and cannot offer devoted services to patients. At times patients would be referred to them at the private sectors for follow ups.

Waiting list mostly in governmental hospitals is unfavorable to most patients. The scenario also prompts some health operators to up the fees in most countries. Transparency is advised to the patients and the hospitals to have standard payment structures for their services. Another ethical issue in healthcare is that patients are exposed to an environment where they are at risk of transmission of diseases.

Mostly this occurs in hospitals where wards are open spaced. A solution for this is that the governmental sector associated must ensure that hospitals meet the required standards. Health providers are to have the knowledge and skills required to deliver services to patients. Nurses have to ensure that the environment surrounding the patient is conducive to their health. Nurses are advised to report any challenges that they encounter.

Most reports by the nurse is that they neglected to attend the patients' needs as intended that is in the aspect of the patients emotional needs, aiding their recovery and also help them to adapt. Nurses have the responsibility of witnessing their patient's sufferings. They have a responsibility to weigh those sufferings. Nurses have to look into the way they manage competing obligations in the hospitals (Grace, 2017).

The nurse managers on the other hand have the mandate of working towards phasing the ethical issues. They have to reinforce the application of ethical principles. They also have to ensure that the environment is in support of esteemed ethical values. Organizations also play a part in ensuring that ethical morals and values are followed in healthcare practice. They have to offer support to all health workers and ensure that the code of ethics is complied with.

Organizations should also aim at exploring ways to counterattack ethical conflicts, this is important not only to nurses but also health workers as it will bring about the emergence of better outcomes. Furthermore Education programs should be availed to all health workers and it should emphasize more on ethical issues. Moreover for new employees, orientation should have theoretical principles that would help them deal with any ethical issue that may arise.

Another solution is creation of an environment where all health workers can voice out their concerns. The complexity of ethical issues would better be curbed with everyone placing their experiences on the table and sharing them to find solutions. To improve nurse's performance at work, counselling should be mandatory for them at least on a weekly basis as they handle so much.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the paper explores ethical issues healthcare is facing and solutions. Some of the issues organizations can find solutions and implement whereas others require the intervention of the government and the public. To phase out all the ethical issue principles, codes and values are in required in order to facilitate the health care workers in coming out with better decisions and tackling the ethical problems. Higher authorities should initiate discussions pertaining the ethical issues with the aim of bringing changes to the policies. Provision of guidance in the code of ethics may be helpful in curbing arising ethical issues.

References

Grace, P. J. (2017). Nursing ethics and professional responsibility in advanced practice .3rd ed., Vol. 3rd. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett.

Grace, S. (2017). Ethical experiential learning in medical, nursing and allied health education: A narrative review. Nurse Education Today, 51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2016. 12.024

Boswell, C. (2018).Introduction to nursing research: Incorporating evidence-based practice. Jones & Bartlett Publishers

Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia. (2016). Registered nurse standards for practice. Retrieved from http://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/Codes-Guidelines-Statements/Professional-standards/registered-nurse-standards-for-practice.aspx