Legal and Ethical Issues in Nursing Literature & Language Essay (Essay Sample)

Ethical and Legal Issues in Nursing
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Ethical and Legal Issues in Nursing
Nursing fraternity performs a significant role in alleviating suffering as well as protecting and restoring the health of patients. Indeed, the nursing community is one of the proudest chapters in the history of the human being. The well being and image of any institution is premised on the behavior of the people constituting it. Consequently, workers are under obligation to uphold their ethics and legal duties while in the workplace (Atkins, Lacey, Ripperger, & Ripperger, 2020). This requirement similarly applies to nurses undertaking their responsibilities in various sectors of health care delivery. Currently, nurses are going through numerous ethical and legal issues more than ever before. Ethics could be defined to mean customs or those beliefs that guide people in the delivery of their duties. Beauchamp and Childress propounded four ethical principles in the medical field. These principles include Respect for autonomy, Beneficence, non-maleficence and justice. This paper essay sets itself on the path to utilize the provided case scenarios to tackle questions of ethical and legal issues arising therein
The principle of autonomy can be construed to mean independence in decision making, self-rule or absence of interference and undue influence. It requires that the patients are accorded complete freedom of thought, intention and action as they make decisions on their health. This requirement means, therefore, that there should be no coercion or interference from another party. The nurse should, however, make the patient understand all the associated risks and benefits for them to make an informed decision. In our case scenario, we learn that after Mrs Donaldson had fallen and got injured in the head, her daughter informs the informant who delivered the information that sometimes her mother gets a little bit shaky and needed some proper care. This information then begs the question whether the nurses in the hospital paid any attention to the demands that come with the ethical principle of autonomy. They should have questioned the patient regarding her conditions and inform her on every available avenue to help her regain her health. This act would have enabled her to make an informed decision, for instance, retaining her daughter with her or even call for closer attention. In this regard, the receiving nurses did not act ethically.