Whistle Blowing in a Healthcare Institution (Essay Sample)

Whistle Blowing in a Healthcare Institution
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Any danger in a nursing organization threatens both the life of the nurses and other workers in the organization and the lives of patients. It is required every nursing organization create and implement its way of alerting the people in case of a risk. There have to be channeled through which any observed can be brought into the awareness of the organization. Sometimes these channels may fail and the nurse's efforts to report a danger to be in vain. At this moment, there comes a need for whistleblowing, which is the use of external factors outside the organization to respond to the danger. This can be through reporting the matter to a higher command inside the organization or outside the organization.
Being a whistle-blower takes great courage and self-conviction because it requires the whistle-blower to avoid groupthink. Analyze how groupthink affects the process of whistle-blowing.
The unsuitable conformity to certain norms shared by a group, referred to as groupthink, is a great hindrance to most people who would like to whistle blow. These norms show how by whistleblowing, you will be risking your profession and your wellbeing. This makes most nurses afraid of some consequences which they believe would come as a result of whistleblowing.
Another thing that groupthink creates inside a nurse who is willing to go that extra mile and whistle blow is the fear of the reactions of their employers, which may lead to loss of their jobs. Another big problem is that groupthink makes the nurses comfortable about anything they observe, and therefore, fail to report if something risky is observed. This makes a nurse, who is aware of a certain problem, ignore until things worsen to report. Some keep a blind eye until a crisis occurs or even it becomes public.
A nurse who follows the norms and believes of a certain group of nurses or other workers is likely to face a lot of challenges from the group. According to Dussuyer (2015), these challenges may include isolation, which might lead to distress, abuse or mistreatments, and other negative reactions from their coworkers. This will make the nurse afraid of doing it at any other time, and the other nurses who witness the treatments on their colleagues due to whistleblowing may never attempt to do it at any given point of their career. Another challenge is the growing difference between what professionals are supposed to be doing, and what they usually do. This makes most professionals be used to ignoring what should rightfully be done, and in this case, they may not be willing to whistle blow.
Discuss the pros and cons of whistle-blowing.
Whistle-blowing has a lot of advantages to the whistle-blower and the society at large. This is because it helps expose fraudulent activities in the nursing organization, which might be life endangering, according to Improvement (2016). When the problems are exposed and addressed, better conditions and healthy environmental conditions are created hence more lives are saved. When a problem in the organization has been exposed, the organization can rectify it, or an external intervention occurs, whereby safety is restored.
Whenever there is whistle-blowing, the management of the organization will certainly be angry about the whistle-blower. There is legal protection from retaliation in case the management decides to do so due to your choice. At this time where the government is concerned about transparent services are done with integrity, you can be awarded for exposing a life-risking activity through whistle-blowing. This can be done when the matter is investigated and it is established that the activity was done and is life-risking.
However, there are some disadvantages as well. One of the most common is the suffering of your career, which according to Jackson (2014), may be due to loss of job if the organization decides to suck you. This affects the involved person, and it is among the greatest fears that hinder most nurses from whistle-blowing. Another problem is the suffering of your relationship at work. This could be due to negative treatments from your authorities at work, or even your coworkers. In other cases, one can be isolated and be excluded in the allocation of opportunities that destined for workers.
What are the key guidelines for blowing the whistle?
Before blowing a whistle, the whistle-blower should consider a number of things first. One of them the organization's code of conduct. They should consider what the organization requires them to do when in the current situation. The nurse should first ensure that they have used all ways that are available for them to communicate in the organization. When all attempts have failed and the nurse has got whistle-blowing as the only option, then they should put it clear why they opted to do so. It should be clear on what problem the nurse desire to see it solved, and what its effects are.
One should also consider their safety, as well as the other party too. You have to ensure that you are safe before you go ahead to whistle-blow. Consider what might be the outcomes and find out whether you'll be able to bear them at that particular moment. It is also important to consider the cost of the action and compare it with