Question

5. Ethics in nursing (300 words)

Please answer the following two questions based on the following scenario: You are working as a nurse in an aged care facility during an acute gastroenteritis outbreak. Many of the residents are affected by the symptoms of gastroenteritis (with various degrees of severity), but not all. Some residents have cognitive impairments, other do not. Some residents’ family members are insisting they be allowed to access their relative’s daily report. Some need to be allocated treatment-related resources that may deprive others. For example, nurses and other staff need to give residents affected by gastroenteritis more diligent and regular attention with toileting and person hygiene. Residents affected have been moved to single rooms with all new linen that is changed frequently that has resulted in restriction of linen available to other residents. Residents not affected are given a lower priority and sometimes need to wait longer for assistance with activities of daily living as staff are very busy. Extra personal protective equipment needs to be purchased and this has impacted on the faculty budget so extra activities such as music and art therapy has been reduced for that month.

(a)      Briefly describe the nature of the power relation between nurses and patients in this scenario. In the light of this, explain why the fiduciary model is the legally prescribed model of the nurse/patient relationship (approximately 150 words). [4 marks]

(b)      There are ethical considerations that arise in this scenario. Discuss two of these considerations, explaining their ethical nature by utilising one or more theories or principles you have learned about in this unit (approximately 150 words). [4 marks]

Answer 1

a) The nurse patient relation here brings power inclined towards the nurses as they posses the right to choose priority according to the seriousness and the demands of the situation. It is a well explanable scenario of legally prescride fiduciary model nurse/patient relationship. According to this model, the patients are expected to trust the care providers completely and nurses are expected to provide the maximum care and concern for heir patients. Here, the nurses are trying their best to deliver the maximum care to the patients, though some of them had to wait a bit more than the usual to get their things done. It is markable that they prioritise patients only during a different situation like a outbreak in the mentioned scenario and before that they treated everyone at the most equity. Thus the patients are expected to cooperate and is well explained by fiduciary model.

b) The two main ethical considerations can be the deprived availabilty of linen and materialilstic necessities of the unaffected residents and making them wait so long for basic needs. The first one can be questioned by the principle of provison of basic comfort for all the patients irrrespective of the situation.This deals with the supply of the basic materialistic needs which are prior to the medicines when the patient is admitted in a hospital. The second one deals with the principle of delivering attention where the nurses are expected to show maximum attention to the patients and  never cause them to wait long for that. But in this scenario both the principles are almost met by the fiduciary model.

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