Nursing assignment exploring the ethical responsibilities in the practices of the Registered Nurse
Question
Task: Critically apply relevant legal and ethical principles to future health care practice situations at the level of a beginning Registered Nurse. Summarize the key ethical principles in relation to your professional role as a Registered Nurse in the nursing assignment.
Answer
Introduction
The article published in News 19 reveals that Maura Kathryn Bannister, a former nurse of the Brisbane hospital gave an extra dose of morphine to a patient and due to this extra dose of morphine the patient died. The most interesting fact in this nursing assignmentis, that the nurse who gave the morphine to the patient had no right to administer or give medication to the patient (Brisbanetimes.com.au, 2021). The article in the newspaper also reveals that the nurse intentionally gives an extra dose of Morphine to the patient and she said that she helped the patient to die and also helped the patient’s family. She was feeling proud of what she did and called herself an “angel of death”.According to the nursing assignment the patient’s family was very much upset with the decision of the nurse. The “Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Authority” (AHPRA) cancelled the registration of the nurse. The doing of Maura Kathryn Bannister violated the ethical principle of non-maleficence (ahpra.gov.au, 2022).
Critical Evaluation of the article in the nursing assignment
The principle of non-maleficence or do no harm asserts that persons who are accustomed to health care services should act in a way that cannot be a reason for harm to the patient (Elton, 2021). This principle as per the nursing assignmentalso stated that health care professionals should take extra care of patients and should give them a service that will be very beneficial for patients but the case study of Bannister is highlighting that the decision of the nurse is contradictory to the principle of non-maleficence and it violates the ethics.
The decision of Bannister also violates the ethics of Beneficence according to the nursing assignment. This ethics is about giving an appropriate service to patients by the health care professionals in a way that will help them a lot in their healing process but the case of Bannister is contradictory to it. The newspaper article of News 19 reveals that the former nurse Maura gives extra morphine to patients which will accelerate the death of the patient. So as per the nursing assignment, her decision was the opposite of the ethics of Beneficence. Another most important ethical principle mentioned in the nursing assignmentin the healthcare sector is health maximisation. This principle is about increasing the overall facility of healthcare service by providing a great service to customers (Bufacchi, 2020). This principle mentioned in thenursing assignmentis about improving the healing process of patients in an effective way but the case study of Maura Bannister is the opposite to it and the ethical issue has not been maintained properly in that case.
The duty of professionals related to the healthcare sector is to provide a great service to patients and provide them with an appropriate healthcare facility (John, 2022). Appropriate service to patients helps a particular organisation deal in this sector to get a huge advantage (Thaldar&Shozi 2020). An effective service as per the nursing assignmentis also very imperative for increasing the trust of patients’ relatives. Relatives of patients always think that their patient will get an appropriate service in the hospital and the service of that hospital will help to heal their patient more appropriately and quickly but the work of Bannister was the opposite to it. The work that the nurse did not only break the trust of patient families but also makes a great impact on the overall business process of Brisbane hospital.
Discussion of this part in the nursing assignmentreveals that Bannister did not follow the ethical principle properly.
Presentation of key findings in the nursing assignment
The discussion of this paper in the nursing assignment reveals that Maura Kathryn Bannister, a former nurse at Brisbane hospital did not follow the ethical principle properly at the time of doing her work. The work of the nurse is contradictory to her professional responsibilities. The discussion of the nurse with her colleague as per the nursing assignmentalso reveals her unprofessional behaviour. It is the duty of a nurse to provide an appropriate service to their patient by observing, assessing, speaking, and administering proper medication and treatment to them. The proper treatment and medication help patients stay healthy and fit (Kotak & Ahuja 2020). It is the responsibility of any nurse to provide their service in a way that will be very beneficial for the healing process of the patient but the activities of Maura were the opposite of it.
Another most important thing mentioned in the nursing assignmentwas, that she was not ashamed of her doing and she was very proud of her doing. She even gave her the title of the angel of death. All these discussions are indicating the unprofessionalism of the nurse. She was in a sector which is very important for society. Therefore, her responsibility was also quite huge but she did not work appropriately and what she did, was opposite the ethical principles. Moreover, she did not have any power to give medicine to the patient but the case study reveals that she provided medicine to the patient and her motive was very clear in all her doing. It is also a great responsibility of any nurse to communicate with the family members of patients properly and informed them about the current health condition of the patient but Maura did not consult with the family members of the patients before providing the patient with extra liquid morphine. Even Maura as per the nursing assignmentstated that she helped the family members of the patient.
All these things are indicating that there was a clear shortcoming in Maura's professional responsibility. Hence as per the nursing assignment, the decision of AHPRA regarding the suspension of Maura was quite effective. The decision of AHPRA will decrease these kinds of issues in the future and will help to create proper professional responsibilities among professionals working in the healthcare sector (ahpra.gov.au, 2022). An increase in the professional responsibilities among professionals will increase the effectiveness of the whole healthcare sector and they will be able to provide an appropriate service to patients. It will also help to increase the trust of patients and families of patients. The role of hospitals as per the nursing assignmentis also very important in eliminating this type of issue. So it is the responsibility of the hospitals also to focus on these issues properly.
References
ahpra.gov.au, (2022). “Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Authority” Retrieve from: https://www.ahpra.gov.au/ [Retrieved on: 16th July 2022]
Azheri, B. (2018). The Principle of Non-Maleficence. Journal of Legal, nursing assignment, Ethical and Regulatory Issues, 21(3). Retrieve from: http://repo.unand.ac.id/id/eprint/28790/contents [Retrieved on: 16th July 2022]
Brisbanetimes.com.au, (2021) "pro-euthanasia nurse was 'proud' to help a friend to die" Retrieved from: https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/
pro-euthanasia-nurse-was-proud-to-help-friend-to-die-20210319-p57cd9.html [Retreived on 16th July 2022]
Bufacchi, V. (2020). Justice as Non-maleficence in nursing assignment.Theoria, 67(162), 1-27. Retrieve from: https://www.academia.edu/download/65651605/Justice_as_non_maleficence.pdf [Retrieved on: 16th July 2022]
Elton, L. (2021). Non-maleficence and the ethics of consent to cancer screening. Journal of Medical Ethics, 47(7), 510-513. Retrieve from: https://jme.bmj.com/content/medethics/47/7/510.full.pdf [Retrieved on: 16th July 2022]
John, S. (2022). Non-Maleficence, Social Benefit and the Vaccination of Children. Rhode Island Medical Journal (2013), 105(3), 9-12. Retrieve from: http://rimed.org/rimedicaljournal/2022/04/2022-04-09-ethics-john.pdf [Retrieved on: 16th July 2022]
Kotak, R., & Ahuja, B. S. (2020). Deliberating Dental Ethics-Bordering on Legitimacy of Beneficence and Non-Maleficence. World Journal of Advanced Scientific Research, 3(4), 57-67. Retrieve from: https://ubipayroll.com/wjasr/index.php/wjasr/article/download/25/21 [Retrieved on: 16th July 2022]
Thaldar, D., &Shozi, B. (2020). Procreative Non-Maleficence: a South African human rights perspective on heritable human genome editing in nursing assignment. The CRISPR Journal, 3(1), 32-36. Retrieve from: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/crispr.2019.0036 [Retrieved on: 16th July 2022]
