Essentials of Nursing Law - Research Paper Example

? End of Life Care February 24, End of Life Care Introduction Nursing professionals are bound by ethical and legal standards. The research delves on end of life nursing care. The research delves on nursing roles during end of life situations. Nursing professionals must comply with end of life ethical and legal standards. Discussion Nurses play a vital role in the patients’ end of life care. Nursing care includes acting as the patients’ counselor or shoulder to cry on. The nurses usually start the decision making processes during each end of life healthcare intervention. The same nurses constantly supply allowable medical information to the end of life patients’ families and friends. The nurses’ healthcare training and years of actual medical experience equips the nurses with the capacity to contribute influential recommendations to the decision making process, especially in terms of terminating the end of life patients’ earthly abode. Consequently, the nurses must be allowed to contribute their share to end of life patients’ decision making activities (Els et al., 2008). In the business world, customers pay for the services of the company. The company uses the customers’ payments to pay for the expenses needed to continue the company’s daily business operations. The business operation expenses include the salaries of the line and staff employees, electricity expense, water expense, and telephone expense. The company uses the customers’ payments to purchase the latest business equipments and inventories. Without the customers, the company will be forced to close shop. Further, the same business principle applies to the healthcare facilities. Nurses must prioritize the end of life patients’ rights in the exercise of their duties as nurses (Westrick, 2008). Without the patients, the healthcare facilities will not receive cash inflows. Consequently, the healthcare facilities will not be able to defray the amounts needed for each of the expenses needed to continue the healthcare facilities’ daily health care operations. The healthcare facilities’ routine operation expenses include the salaries of the medical doctors, nurses, physical therapists, medical technologists, and other employees. The healthcare facilities’ expenses also include the usual electricity expense, water expense, and telephone expense. The healthcare facilities use the patients’ payments to acquire the latest healthcare equipments, tools and inventories. Without the cash payments from the healthcare patients, the healthcare facilities, including the hospitals and home for aged facilities, the healthcare facilities will have no other recourse except to file for bankruptcy proceedings. Likewise, Mary Cooke and Ciaran Hurley emphasized that the patients should be given a greater role in deciding whether to continue end of life medical intervention (Cooke, M., Ciaran, H., 2008). Healthcare service is a partnership between the service providers and the service providers’ patients. The financial factors contribute to the partnership between the healthcare parties. One of the factors is finance. The poor patients cannot afford retaining the healthcare services of the healthcare facilities. The healthcare facilities cannot continue serving the needs of the patients if they cannot pay for the services of the healthcare facilities. Further, the healthcare workers, including the nursing professionals, must bend to the preferences of the patients (Cooke, M., Ciaran, H., 2008). For example, the patients can choose to be roomed at the ward or cheapest bed area within the healthcare facilities. The patients may not be able to pay for the exclusive or higher costing rooms of the healthcare facilities. Medical professionals and the nurses must bend to the wishes of the patients to prescribe cheaper but similarly effective medicines. The doctors and nurses should implement the patients’ preferences to under cheaper medical procedures, when the patients’ finances prevent the patients from taking advantage of the additional benefits of higher costing medical procedures. Furthermore, the relatives may be allowed to require the healthcare professionals, especially nurses, to legally and ethically end the life of the terminally ill or comatose patient (Rosdahl et al., 2008). In the 1976 Karen Quinlan case, the New Jersey Supreme Court approved the relatives’ request to instruct the healthcare professionals, medical doctors, to pull the plug from the respirator attached to Karen Quinlan. Being comatose for one year, the court decided to instruct the medical doctors to allow Karen to die a natural death by removing the respirator (Scheb, 2011). Moreover, the patient who is penniless may request the medical professionals to pull the plug. When this happens, the medical professionals consult with the patients’ relatives regarding the patients’ choice to stop living artificially. Often, artificial medical equipments or accessories prolong the life of the patients. For example, the patient whose heart stops is given several choices, In terms of healthcare. The rich patient may decide to accept the medical facilities’ recommendation to replace a malfunctioning heart with a pacemaker. The medical equipment, pacemaker, takes the place of the human heart. The rich patient can choose live longer with the pacemaker implant (Ferrell, 2010). Additionally, healthcare professionals, especially nurses, can use external medical equipment to prolong the life of the end of life patients. External medical equipments can be attached to the patients’ body to prolong the patients’ life. Other patients may accept the healthcare facilities’ recommendation to use dialysis machine to prolong the life of the rich patients. When the patients’ kidneys malfunction, the dialysis machine replaces the kidney’s functions of cleaning the human body’s blood of toxins and other disposal products. The poor patient cannot afford to pay for the dialysis machine uses. Patients having heart malfunction problems cannot pay for the high cost of pacemakers. The poverty level patient cannot pay for the daily use of the healthcare machines strapped to his or her body. Consequently, the healthcare facilities, medical doctors, nurses, physical therapists, and other responsible officials must adhere to the patients’ desire to end his or her life (Ferrll, 2010). Furthermore, healthcare professionals must exercise a holistic approach when dealing with end of life patients (Scheb, 2011). End of life partnerships require healthcare professionals exercise both sensitivity and flexibility in the delivery of their functions. The healthcare facilities must focus on patient-based healthcare policies. The shift indicates that what should be implemented is what the patient prefers. The healthcare facilities must not force the patients to swallow a pill that the patients refuse to take. The nurses must not force the patient to undergo medical procedures, holding the patients hostage to the healthcare policies’ requirements. Consequently, the healthcare professionals must ethically shift to the partnership type of healthcare services. The healthcare professionals, especially nurses, should persuade the patients to implement the recommended medical intervention. However, the patients should be given the free will to accept or reject the medical intervention recommendations. The nurse must continue to prioritize discussion the options to the end of life patients (Westrick, 2008). Further, when the patient refuses the medical recommendations, the healthcare professionals, especially nurses, have complied with their ethical duties (Scheb, 2011). Ethics requires that a person should not do what is immoral or will harm other persons. Consequently, the healthcare professionals, especially nurses, must do whatever is within their professional power to keep the patients alive. The same professionals must institute medical procedures that will alleviate, cure, or make the life of the patients more comfortable. Furthermore, the nurses must attend to the personal needs of the end of life patients (Cooke, M., Ciaran, H., 2008). The nurses must ensure that the patients take their medicines on time. The same nurses must continue to monitor the vital statistics of the patients in order to introduce necessary medical intervention when different medical situations arise. However, the nurses must seek approval of the patients prior to the implementation of the medical intervention or prevention. By complying with the patients’ responses to a recommended medical intervention, the healthcare professionals, especially nurses, have complied with their ethical responsibilities to prioritize the patients’ welfare over and above the implementation of the medically proper medical intervention. Additionally, Carolyn Laabs reiterated that the American Nurses Association (ANA) approves of the nurses’ participation in assisted suicides. Most end of life patients request for or approve assisted suicides (2010). The same association insisted that the nurses must provide expert care and counseling to the end of life patients. The new statement replaced the nursing association’s prior 1994 statement that prohibits nursing from aiding in any Euthanasia proceedings. The new statement recommends that nurses assist suicides, when other alternative nursing care procedures are less viable. Further, Bruchem et al reported that medical doctors should take the lead in Euthanasia implementations (2008). The nurses are not authorized to solely decide to implement patient suicides. In a Dutch research, patients initially discuss their desire to commit suicides to their attending nurses. The research indicated that eight percent of the nurses communicated the patients’ death wishes to the patients’ medical doctors. The same research indicated that four percent of the Euthanasia cases, the nurses implemented the suicides with or without the help of the medical doctors. Consequently, medical doctors and nurses coordinate their action in order to comply with established patient-based ethical, legal, and procedural requirements. Conclusion Summarizing the above discussion, nursing healthcare professionals must implement ethical and legal requirements. The end of life patients’ nurses must legally and ethically prioritize patient care by consulting with the patients’ relatives. Patient care includes prioritizing implementation of the patients’ healthcare preferences, especially end of life choices. Evidently, nursing professionals should obey all end of life ethical and legal standards by prioritizing the patients’ healthcare intervention preferences. References: Bruchem_etal. (2008). Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide in Dutch Hospital: The Role of Nurses. Journal of Clinical Nursing , 17 (12), 1618-1626. Cooke, M., Ciaran, H. (2008). A Case Study Exploring the Ethical and Policy Dimentions of Allocating Acute Care Resources to a Dying Patient. Journal of Clinical Nursing , 17(10), 1371-1379. Els et al., (2008). Decision Making about Artificial Feeding in End of Life Care. Journal of Advanced Nursing , 63 (1), 2-14. Ferrell, B. (2010). Oxford Textbook of Palliative Nursing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Laabs, C. (2010). Nurses and Care of Patients at the End of Life: On the ANA Revised Position Statement. The Linacre Quarterly , 2 (1), 168-174. Rosdahl et al. (2008). Textbook of Basic Nursing. New York: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Scheb, J. (2011). Criminal Law. New York: Cenage Learning. Westrick, S. (2008). Essentials of Nursing Law and Ethics. New York: Jones & Bartlett. Read More