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Nursing Violations of Patient Rights

NURSING AND PATIENT RIGHTS: A LITERATURE REVIEW

Abuse of patients has become a significant issue for health care professionals in recent years (Rhymes, 1991, pp. 803-816). For the professional nurse, patient abuse is not a situation that simply demands the extension of care to the victims. On one hand, health care professionals have a moral obligation to these victims to insure that the victims are removed, to the extent possible, from abusive situations. On the other hand, the professional nurse feels a traditional obligation to protect the privacy of patients and their families. Between these extremes of an ethical continuum, contemporary society is demanding increased accountability from its health care professionals. Health care professionals who fail to report instances of abuse expose themselves to potential legal problems, just as they are if they themselves are the perpetrators of such abuse. This ethical dilemma appears destined to grow in significance.

Typically, when one considers the phenomenon of patient abuse by a professional nurse, the image is one of a nurse in some way brutalizing a patient. Actual abuse of patients by nurses, by contrast, usually occurs within the contexts of (1) refusing care to patients either because of their condition or the type of care required, (2) a failure carelessly or intentionally to assure that patients are fully informed, and (3) medication errors resulting from a nurse's own impairment (Skelly, 1993, pp. 11-14).

The growing diversity in the structure of the American population, an increase in the incidence of both incurable and highly communicable diseases among this population, and an evolving social milieu that to some people causes the unthinkable to be considered creates moral, ethical, and practical dilemmas for many in the nursing profession.

The incidence of tuberculosis in the United States over the past 15 years has increased dramatically (Eubanks, 1992, p...

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Nursing Violations of Patient Rights. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 11:51, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1694191.html