Nursing Term Paper on Legal, Ethics and Patient Rights (Term Paper Sample)

LEGAL ETHICS, PATIENTS’ RIGHTS, AND HIV/AIDS
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Introduction
In the medical profession, there is a code of medical ethics that states that the prime objective of the medical professionals is to provide service to humanity with respect of the human dignityCITATION Mat02 \l 2057 (Mathiharan, 2002). In that case, the doctors are expected to extend that standard of medical care and support to all patients regardless of the illness or other conditions. It is grossly unethical for a medical doctor to deny a patient treatment or refuse to investigate the service denial claims. People living with HIV/AIDS are often discriminated against in the hospitals for various reasons that include, but not limited to issues of insurance. There emerge lots of unethical cases surrounding the handling of the HIV/AIDS patients, especially when it comes to issues of confidentiality. In such a situation, the medical doctors are torn between the legal mandates and the medical ethics. A patient diagnosed with HIV/AIDS would prompt the doctor to notify the spouse or other partners to whom the patient can transmit the disease, but the legal mandates calls for the upholding of patient data confidentiality CITATION Lin05 \l 2057 (Lin & Liang, 2005). Presented herein is an investigation into the validity of the patients’ claims of service denial and related medical ethics.
Investigating claims of service denial
It is well known that despite the legal protections offered to the people living with HIV/AIDS, they still face stigma and discrimination across all aspects of the social and economic life, and this includes healthcare. Discrimination of these patients in healthcare is quite shocking where the medical personnel stigmatize such patients and sometimes refuse to treat them and sometimes provide substandard care to them CITATION And09 \l 2057 (Anderson, 2009). The healthcare professionals have a duty to distance themselves from such activities that tend to stigmatize, alongside the legal duty not to discriminate. The result of the various cases of stigmatization and discrimination has been an increase in claims of service denials, which need to be verified before actions can be taken against the institution or the healthcare professionals engaging in such activities. The investigation plan has the following components:
* Objectives of the investigation
The prime objective of the investigation is to validate the claims made by the HIV/AIDS patients regarding service denial and other cases of stigmatization and discrimination. This will be done by going through the compliance reports and the standard procedures surrounding the treatment of the patients with HIV/AIDS. The claims made by the patients will be reviewed against these procedures and the codes of ethics and other related policies.
* Mechanisms of addressing the service denial claims
As mentioned above, the claims will be reviewed against the procedures and policies to determine if the claims made indicate a violation of any or all of the standard procedures, policies or codes. Addressing these claims will require a mechanism that will adopt a corrective action on both the side of the institution and the healthcare professionals found guilty. The patients can be assigned to other doctors who will take care of them, and due punishment recommended on the part of the healthcare personnel.
* Investigation personnel
As the head of the institution, I will appoint some members of the management team to help with the investigation.
* Investigation procedures/steps
The investigation will begin with the understanding or recognition of the need for the investigation. This will be followed by an evaluation and definition of the aims and objectives of the investigation, as well as the possible limitations and/or challenges that might be encountered therein. The investigator or group of investigators will be selected and the witnesses will be availed. These will most likely be the patients. The documents to be reviewed are identified and availed to the investigator(s). These are the relating to medical codes, institutional codes/policies, and other relevant documents. Questions will be prepared and the files and records maintained. The investigation process will be reviewed periodically.
* Investigation techniques
Various techniques will be used in the investigation, and these will be listed in this investigation plan. The techniques include interviews, surveys, group discussions, recordings, and client responses among others.
Upholding ethical conduct
Under normal circumstances, nurse staffing in the healthcare institutions is not done with the aim of preserving or inculcating ethical conduct, but with the aim of striking a balance between the costs and benefits associated with various staffing levels. This strategy can largely be short-sighted owing to the fact that there are costs associated with the quality of service offered. Few healthcare organizations consider skill-mix in nurse staffing, and this implies that there are high chances that nurses with less skills in handling patients will be on duty at a particular time without a skilled nurse to neutralize their impacts on the quality of the services offered. The primary way in which the different staffing levels can play a vital role in upholding ethical conduct is the inclusion of different skills in any one level. In other words, both the day and night shifts should not focus on the relationship between the patient number and the nurse number (their ratio), but the mix of skills that will ensure dignity in treating the patients of all illnesses.
Clarke and Donaldson CITATION Cla08 \n \t \l 2057 (2008) provide a conceptual framework of the staffing levels and the underlying factors that affect the various staffing levels. As per the framework, the administrators ought to determine the staffing levels on the basis of agency and the staff or staff hours allocated to the different subunits in a particular facility. Such a practice will bear some impacts on the mix and characteristics of the nurse workforce and the care model used in the assignment of staff in the provision of care, as well as a wide range of workplace environments that will affect how the nurses will practice CITATION Cla08 \l 2057 (Clarke & Donaldson, 2008). Among the characteristics that bear most consideration in the context of upholding ethical conduct include support services, information and communication systems, collaboration and the physical environment. In other words, the different staffing levels can produce a working environment where the nurses will have to uphold ethical conduct including treating the patients with dignity. In justifying this position, failure to uphold ethical conduct will be determined by the work environment, meaning that the nurses ought to be placed in an environment that ensures they do uphold ethical conduct.
Plan for legal ramifications
In almost every country, it is illegal for anyone to discriminate against the people living with HIV/AIDS. Since the law and ethics share the common goal of creating and maintaining social good CITATION Kau081 \l 2057 (Kaur & Singh, 2008), it is good for the healthcare professionals to understand their ethical requirements in the workplace may also be legal requirements. That is to say that the healthcare professional need to understand the legal implications of their conducts towards the patients with HIV/AIDS. Medical malpractices are recognized in most legal systems, meaning that they are regarded as violations of law and also as having a criminal nature in them. Considering that the law and ethics in the context of healthcare are dynamic, the healthcare professionals need to take care.
The plan for the primary legal ramifications to the professional staff regarding the treatment of the HIV/AIDS patients would simply entail the internal disciplinary actions against the rogue professionals, and this would then be followed by a legal action in the courts if need be. The implication herein is that the violation of the various laws regarding the medical practices will be punished by the institution only in the cases where it has the ability and ‘jurisdiction...