In the nursing field, each day is always different from the rest either the previous or the next. Nurses often face unique ethical dilemmas situation every time. For instance, working in the pediatric unit dealing with children of tender age might be challenging. Children come from different and diverse religious, socioeconomic and cultural background. All these depend on their parents or guardians who take care of them. Children follow the belief that they have found their parents or guardians subscribed in. Therefore, this affects the type of health or medical services that they can accept or decline from the health care providers attending to them.
Religion is one of the ethical decision that nurses have to handle. People come from different faiths and even churches. Therefore, this influences the kind of medication and health service administered to them. For instance, of interest is Jehovah witness community which is governed by the Tract Society and the watch Tower Bible. Their interpretation of scriptures or bible teachings determine for their followers the acceptable medical services and the non-acceptable. This is hard for a nurse who is dealing with a kid who is from such a religion, providing medical care is challenging. They are always against the idea of administering vaccinations, blood transfusion, and organ transplant. The community has prohibited the practice of transfusing blood from one patient to another may it be well screened or not they do not support. Therefore, this paper will discuss more on the prohibition of blood transfusion in young children.
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However, these prohibitions and beliefs have some importance in the nursing field and the medical field at large. Nurses and doctors are always striving to deliver their best to their patients and show respect to their religions regardless of their beliefs and prohibitions. It has led to other and many innovations in the medical field. An example of change is the development of a bloodless surgery program that was initiated at Portland’s Legacy Health (Holt & Convey, 2012). This program mainly manages the loss of blood, pre- and intraoperatively , a procedure that begins a few weeks before the major surgical operations. This has helped reduce the cost of doing surgeries by lowering the rate of infections and the period of stay in the hospital.
Medical practices and nursing contains a code of ethics that generally guide them and ensures that both the wishes of the patients and the healthcare provider are respected and protected. The basis of the law is on a set of values; professional, institutional, and personal that assist in the day to day decision making the process of nurses and doctors ( Hall et al . 2018). The dilemma in situations like the prohibition of blood transfusion in children and pediatrics should be well analyzed using the ethical model provided about the core personal and institutional values. However, this may differ from one case to another due to the difference and uniqueness in every patient’s needs and condition. Embracing diversity is necessary when providing medical care to each patient.
The principle of autonomy in medical ethics presents an adult patient with the power and audacity to choose whether to accept or receive medical care and treatment despite them having full detailed information on their medical condition and the importance of the recommended treatment (Holt & Convey, 2012). However, in kids and young children, this is not the case. Here, parents are required, or they are the one who has the power and authority to choose and make decisions on behalf of their children. Therefore, this is a significant concern because of the linked dangers in preventing a kid the proposed lifesaving care. In many scenarios, it outweighs the faith that is the basis of denial. The religious shield laws promote this . Hence it has been enforced in most states that protect parents or guardians from prosecution of such issues which may be considered as homicide or negligence in case death occurs. Therefore, nurses and medical professionals have been forced to be appointed the patient’s advocate by seeking the orders and decision of the courts for the right medical treatment to take over the wishes of the parents or guardians. Therefore, it is also very crucial and vital to decide and know when a child is old enough to choose and make choices on the kind of treatment they want to be administered and receive.
Medical treatment should always aim at promoting the holistic well- being of a patient in all dimensions that is emotional, spiritual, social well-being and psychological. Therefore, in a case where a court gives out an order to the medical practitioner to administer treatment to a patient, but it is against the parent’s or guardians’ beliefs and wishes then that is not offering holistic care (Punjani et al. 2014) This is mainly because of the possible long-standing psychosocial effect that they may face due to the violation of the family’s beliefs and fundamental intrinsic values that their faith has a basis on and that govern them into their day to day decision making.
In conclusion, recent literature shows that the view or perspective and attitude of most nurses or medical doctors on the belief of the Jehovah witness is gradually changing. They no longer view the refusal of blood transfusion as an ethical dilemma that necessarily wants a court order to proceed with medical interventions. Therefore, the attribution to this is improved awareness on the principle of informed consent.
References
Hall, M. A., Orentlicher, D., Bobinski, M. A., Bagley, N., & Cohen, I. G. (2018). Health care law and ethics . Wolters Kluwer Law & Business.
Holt, J., & Convey, H. (2012). Ethical practice in nursing care. Nursing Standard journal (through 2013) , 27 (13), 51.
Punjani, N. S., Bhanji, S. M., Mehgani, S. T., & Shah, M. (2014). Health care ethics–am I dying. International Journal of Endorsing Health Science Research , 2 (1), 28-30.
