Legal and Ethical Aspects of Health Care Delivery - Essay Example

Thirdly, an inevitable result to the mistake of the cardiologist, the nurse carried out an unsupervised procedure without the consent of the doctor in charge. This was indeed a desperate attempt to prevent the further progression of the patient’s worsening condition. Fourthly, the nurse failed to inform the cardiologist of the emergency measure as well as other oncoming staff about the state of the discontinued IV site which showed signs of discoloration and swelling. In this picture, several laws are applicable.

To begin with, while handling a patient in a critical condition it should be the utmost priority of the staff to be vigilant while shifting a patient’s location. The hospital is responsible for the improper care taken while changing beds. Next, the cardiologist was unresponsive to the nurse’s messages, leading to negligence which is unacceptable in health care ethics. Furthermore, the nurse is at great fault in failing to informing other medical staff about the patient’s condition and not documenting the finding after inspection of the site where IV had been inserted (“Standard Nursing,” 2009).

So inferring from these consequences, the cardiologist and the nurse, both are liable for the patient’s death. The nurse and physician were unable to meet the principles of standard health care provision. Carelessness of the physician and the nurse lead to a series of events which ultimately resulted in death of the patient. When a physician is assigned to a patient, it is the utmost priority of the physician to take proper care of the patient over his self-interest and monitor his patient’s condition periodically (Lo, 2009).

In this case, the physician instead of responding to the emergency calls of the nurse simply ignored them, although she knew that the hospital policy clearly forbids the nurses from carrying out insertion of IV’s in feet and legs.