Question

1. Describe a situation where both legal and ethical obligations would be interrelated in a nursing workplace. Your answer must be between 40 – 80 words in length

Answer 1

Legal and ethical obligations:

Nurses have legal and ethical obligation towards their profession and towards people. Ethics are the standards that govern the conduct of a person, especially a member of a profession . Nursing ethics govern the conduct of a nurse. Nurses are obliged to legal system of the Government and also the rules and regulations of the organisation and the authority.  

An example of a situation:

A Nurse practitioner observed signs of physical abuse in a female patient body while doing the Physical examination as she came with a severe abdominal pain that trouble her from 2 weeks  . When asked the patient told that ' she trust the NP that she will not reveal to anyone about the matter' . She then revealed that she was a divorcee and she had a child in the first marriage. Now the second husband, who is with her used to abuse her physically on a daily basis. Even he is a drug abuser. He used to beat the child very badly, but she is afraid that he will kill her , if she tells this ouside. She is secretly planning to to go next month to another city with her child. So she wants the NP to not report to Police or anyone.

In this situation the nurse is in conflict that she has the ethical obligation of Confidentiality and she can't breach the privacy of patient but same time she has the legal obligation of reporting the Domestic violence and the Child abuse case. Otherwise there are chances of repeated violence or homicide.