What is the Moral issue?
The moral issue is using a facility unopened emergency kit that was designed to the patient who just died to relieve pain for Mr. S. The state law requires that such a kit be destroyed, but instead, the hospice nurse went ahead to use it in the emergency situation for Mr. S. This act is against the law which bars nurses from using emergency kits designed for patients who have died to help relieve pain for other patients. The act, therefore, raises a moral issue.
Whose Issue is it?
The moral issue is with the hospice nurse and nursing home who gives the go-ahead to the nurse to use the emergency kit initially designated for a patient who died to be used in a new cancer patient. The nursing home is aware that it is not right to use a kit that was used by a patient who died in another patient, goes ahead and allows the nurse to do so. This also goes against the state law.
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Is anyone responsible to address it?
The person responsible for addressing the moral issue is the state law enforcement agencies. This is because state laws require that an emergency kit used in a patient who died be destroyed, yet the nursing home went ahead to allow the hospice nurse to use it on another patient.
Gather the relevant facts
The nursing home knew of the law which requires that an emergency kit that is used in a patient then that patient die should be destroyed. However, they went ahead and used it to relieve pain for Mr. S., a cancer patient who was undergoing a lot of pain. It remains an immoral act to make a patient share a kit which was designated for a person who later died. While the argument would be that there was no power to designate another kit, the act remains a moral issue.
Test for right versus wrong issues. Were any laws broken?
In testing for the right versus wrong, the focus is based on whether the people involved were aware of the right from the wrong when they committed the act. In this case, the nursing home was aware of the right but opted to give the go-ahead to the hospice nurse to do the wrong. They knew of the state law which requires that a used kit should be destroyed and not used in another patient. They were therefore wrong in their action, and they broke the law which they were aware of at the time. Violation of the law and deviation from the moral rectitude all took place in this case.
Right versus right paradigm. Is this a short-term issue, a long-term issue, a local issue, a community issue?
In the paradigm of understanding the ethical dilemmas, a right versus right paradigm can involve individual versus community. It is right to consider the interest of an individual while at the same time it is right to consider the community. In the short term versus the long-term paradigm, it can be right to think and plan in the short-term while at the same time it is right to think and plan in the long term. However, this is a short-term issue because it was meant to satisfy the current need which was to help the patient relieve pain only at the time there was no power.
What action would you take if you were the nurse? What are the possible consequences (good and bad) of your decision?
If I were the nurse, I could not have violated the law by using a kit that should be destroyed on another patient. I could have adhered to the moral obligations and the law. However, the consequence of this action could have been on the patient who could have undergone a lot of pain during the time that there was no power. The situation of the patient could have worsened due to the pain he was undergoing.
What could be done to avoid this situation and the moral issues around it in the future?
The nursing home should have a standby generator to provide a backup if there is a power outage in the hospital. This would avoid a situation where the nurse is put into an ethical dilemma which finally leads to moral issues. The backup generator can serve better in ensuring that such situations do not affect the service delivery to the patients.
