The nursing profession over time have been greatly affected by nursing shortage whereby the number of nursing staff available are not enough to render the adequate care which the patient requires. We must agree that the nursing staff are
Nurses are responsible to ensure that patients under their care are given safe, effective and ethical care. This meant that when nurses observe harmful practices, it is of their ethical principles to report such wrongdoings to safeguard patients or colleagues against incompetent, unethical and illegal practices. This is complied with the SNB standard of practice where nurses have responsibility and accountability to ensure safe, competent and ethical nursing care for their patients (Singapore Nursing Board, 2011). Nurses based their practices on moral and ethical principles to do good to patients. Therefore, when nurses witness wrongdoings in the organization, it will be against their principles of beneficence to do good and non-maleficence to prevent or do no harm to patients (Couteur, Ford & McLachlan, 2010) if they choose not to
A patient and nurse interact and communicate and form an interpersonal system that is affected by situational factors in the environment (Alligood, 2013). Alligood (2013) also identifies the fundamental concepts of this theory as: perception, communication, interaction, transaction, self, role, growth and development, stress/stressors, coping, time, and personal space. These come from the personal and interpersonal system concepts. While the personal and social systems effect patient outcomes, the system that seems to have the biggest influence on this is the interpersonal system. This is typical in healthcare settings when two people, such as a patient and nurse, work together and fulfill the obligations of their individual roles to achieve mutually-set goals (Alligood, 2013).
To support this claim Watson stated that ‘nurses who are not able to practice caring can become hardened, brittle, worn down, and robot like. (Watson p.467). Watson calm that patients heal are directly affected by how they feel about their current situation. Therefore, it is the nurses and healthcare practitioners’ duty to ensure that patients are comfortable and are properly cared for. Due to overload, nurses and practitioner experience reoccurring errors, which place patients and healthcare workers’ life, at risk.
Ethical Issues in Nursing: Nurse-Patient Ratios Megan Harvey, Katie McKelvery, Erica Robbins & Cassandra Tingley St. Johns River State College March 2018 Ethical Issues in Nursing: Nurse-Patient Ratios Every day nurses are faced with ethical dilemmas. Challenges in these situations are becoming more and more complex due to increasing workload and sicker patients. When a nursing unit is understaffed not only are nurses more likely to become burnt out, but their patients are far less likely to receive the quality of care they deserve. The problem is that the Federal regulations require hospitals who participate in Medicare to “have ‘adequate’ numbers of licensed nurses (RN, LPN, CNA) to provide care to all patients as needed,” but the regulations
In fact, the overtime will become an issue for a nurse when there is a heavy workload. A nurse will feel overwhelm in the situation working overtime and heavy workload. Honestly, I think that the 12-hour shift is a long working hour shift. As nurses have the additional burden of facing overtime and night shifts that bring about physical exhaustion and ill effects. The rotation shifts can mess up nurses’ biological sleeping time.
This article describes the possible hazards due to mandatory overtime such as, “needle-stick and musculoskeletal injuries, fatigue, illness, absenteeism, burnout, job dissatisfaction, and turnover intent.” (Wheatley, 2017) Mandatory overtime can lead to increased medication errors and adverse patient outcomes. A major reason why there has been workplace dissatisfaction is due to overtime, working on weekends, nights and holidays which many nurses tend to look for jobs elsewhere. Routinely, some hospitals use mandatory hours in order to “keep fewer people off the payroll.”(Huston, pg. 137) If nurses don’t do their mandatory overtime hours they may face consequences such as losing their job (Wheatley, 2017). Many nurses feel as though they have no voice in
But there are problems, in this because nurses are very likely to experience nurse burnout in which is caused by these guidelines. Usually, nurses are taken advantage of and this causes them to become overworked and have a decline in patient quality care. This becomes debunked due to the great amount of people that says that it is fine with current conditions, but with current conditions things have been only on the decline. This decline is due to many different things, but overall this causes poor patient care and nurses to drop out of their positions. And these dropouts cause less staff and more stress on the remaining staff due to overload in their work.
They should do all things right in all aspects and to abide by the bylaws set by the profession to promote and protect the safety of their clients. So when nurses do an act that is a breach in the ethical standards of care then it is called professional misconduct (College of Nurses of Ontario, 2014). Nowadays as nurses respond to different situations their job scope has increased and so are the number of misconduct cases filed against nurses. These misconduct are of many forms and of different degree of severity, all hounding the integrity of the nursing profession therefore it is important to further understand what is professional misconduct, discuss an example of it by citing a clinical scenario that have happened and its’
Just like all of us, nurses have responsibilities that extend beyond health care. Nurses are mothers and fathers, they are husbands and wives, some are even responsible for being care givers to other family member. Management should emphasize that they are flexible, they can do this by offering varying shift lengths and staggering stating time, this allows for nurses to choose what’s best for their personal obligations. Being able to plan around a child’s soccer game or school talent can be helpful for a nurse. In addition, health care providers can offer on-site programs such as child care center or gym.