Distributive Justice In Health Care

As a registered nurse practicing in the state of California I am responsible for practicing within my states legal regulations and nursing scope of practice. My concern for the welfare of the sick and injured allows me to practice ethical provisions of nursing. These are required if I am to carry out competent and effective nursing care. Nursing encompasses the prevention of illness, the alleviation of suffering, and the protection, promotion, and restoration of health in the care of individuals. Therefore, as health care professionals we must be familiar with the different philosophical forces, ethical principles, theories and values that influence nursing. At the same time, we must be respectful to our patient’s

The U.S. healthcare system is remarkably complex, and even healthcare workers struggle to understand it. The U.S. population gets health coverage by government programs, employers, and private insurance. Notably, because of the complexity and fragmentation of the health care system, there is a percentage of the population that remains uninsured. According to CNN Money, the uninsured rate in the U.S. dropped from 18.2% in 2010 to 10.3% in 2016, this drop was under Affordable Care Act(ACA) (). The goal of the ACA was not to give health coverage to all the uninsured population, rather it was to try to decrease the percentage of the population that remained uninsured(). There is a lot of inequality in the distribution of health among the U.S. population

A nurse owes a duty to her profession's own code of ethics. Patient autonomy, justice, and respect for patients' dignity are central to nursing practice. The Canadian Nurses' Association (CNA), through the publication of the codes of ethics for nurses, calls upon nurses to

Provision 8.1 of the American Nurses Association Code of Ethics denotes that health is a universal right. The provision states, “the nurse collaborates with other health professionals and the public to protect human rights, promote health diplomacy, and reduce health disparities” (Lachman, Swanson, & Windland-Brown, 2015, p. 365). From chapter 1, the ethical theory that best fits provision 8.1 is utilitarianism. The ethical theory of utilitarianism theorizes “one should act so as to do the greatest good for the greatest number” (Baillie, McGeehan, Garrett, & Garrett, 2013, p. 4). This theory promotes a universal method because it signifies that even if a decision is made and does not benefit every single person; however, benefits most

Healthcare professionals have an ethical obligation to respect patient’s wishes. Consequently, many legal and ethical dilemmas arise in healthcare in response to clinical decisions related to the needs, beliefs, and preferences of patients and families. Other dilemmas result over concerns about the integrity, competence, or actions of other healthcare professionals. Preserving human dignity, relieving suffering, equality, integrity, and accountability are essential nursing values (Kangasniemi, Pakkanen, & Korhonen, 2015). Nurse leaders have an

An underlining principle that forms all nursing practice is respect for the inherent dignity, worth, unique attributes, and human rights of all individuals. (Jimenez-Lopez, Roales-Nieto, Seco, Preciado, 2016) Nurses are to always treat all patients with dignity. For example, closing doors before you start providing patient care. It’s also essential as a nurse to respect patients regardless of their background, race, culture, value system, or spiritual belief. (Jimenez-Lopez, et al., 2016)

A nurse is given an opportunity to help patients, either if its by helping them through a very serious sickness or just helping a patient get to the bathroom on time, or a time when happiness is overfilling the room and a child is being born. Registered nurses provide a wide variety of patient care services (Mitchell, p.12). A Nurse must always know where to begin and where to stop, as any other career in the health field there is always something that cannot be done by everyone but only the certified person, a nurse must always remain inside her scope of practice to prevent any misunderstandings. A nurse must also follow a code of ethics , the code of ethics of the American Association of Medical Assistants states that a nurse should at all times render service with full respect and dignity of humanity, respect confidential information obtained by a patients file, uphold the honor and high principles the profession and accept its discipline, and last but not least always want to improve her services to better serve the health and well being of the community. (Mitchell, p.65).

The American Nurses Association (ANA) has the Code of Ethics which holds Nurses to the codes or provisions of these documents. I summarized Provision 1 of the ANA 's Code of Ethics. I give a scenario where this provision is broken by the nursing staff and consequences of doing so. Provision 1: Provision 1 reads as follows “The nurse, in all professional relationships, practices with compassion and respect for the inherent dignity, worth, and uniqueness of every individual, unrestricted by considerations of social or economic status, personal attributes, or the nature of health problems” (American Nurses Association 2001). Provision 1 is divided into five subdivisions. Provision 1.1 is titled “Respect for human dignity"(ANA 2001). The nurse always needs to place value on their patient as a unique individual. Provision 1.2 is titled “Relationships to patients” (ANA 2001). As a nurse you need to leave all prejudice, personal beliefs, and convictions out of the care of your patient. The patient’s self-worth and value is not defined by their religious choice, culture, lifestyle, hygiene, financial status, sex, and race. The nurse needs to form or follow an individual treatment plan that fits your patient’s personal preferences, religious beliefs, and requests. Provision 1.3 reads as follows “The nature of health problems” (ANA 2001). A nurse is not to judge or look down upon a patient by their "The disease, disability, or functional status “(ANA 2001).The nurse needs

“Nursing as care always includes relationship between two or more persons and needs to be inspected from the point of view of equality” (Kangasniemi, 2010). Nurses always deal with Physicians, clients, and other nurses. By maintaining equality in the working environment, I believe that there will be lower chance of conflict between nurses, physicians and clients. Equality also helps a nurse to maintain a good professional relationship with his/her clients and colleagues. In my opinion, it is important that nurses should have the knowledge of equality so that they can treat all the patients with the same caliber of care. I believe that if nurses have the knowledge of equality, no patient will suffer because of age, sex, ethnicity, and gender. The symbol chosen for equality in the coat of arms is a justice scale. It represents equality because the scales on both sides are equal. The scale is placed at the center of the heart because it is one of the central qualities of nursing. The scale is drawn inside the heart because equality directly touches human’s feelings. If an unbalanced or unequal quality of care is provided for two clients, the one who is receiving less care will feel uncomfortable and discriminated. In order to maintain equality the balance on both side of

According to Nursing Ethics (2001), Inherent in nursing is respect for human rights, including the right to life, to dignity and to be treated with respect. Nursing care is unrestricted by considerations of age, colour, creed, culture, disability or illness, gender, nationality, politics, race or social status. (p. 375).

Nursing profession is constantly changing with the development of new technologies that lead to a new level of responsibility. The new level of responsibility challenges nurses torespond to different and difficultsituations in the health care industry, especially in protecting the human right, dignity of patients and their safety. Nurses hold adistinctive position as patient advocates, regardless of their respective areas of practice; either in a home health, clinic, or in a hospital setting. Nursesare faced with ethical decisions, both personal and professional decisions.

You, as a staff member have to realize that each patient is an individual. Each patient has unique healthcare needs. There are

Bekemeier and Butterfield’s article “Unreconciled Inconsistencies: A Critical Review of the Concept of Social Justice in 3 National Nursing Documents,’ highlighted multiple literary discrepancies on the subject of social justice in nursing. These fundamental nursing documents are: Nursing's Social Policy Statement, Nursing: Scope and Standards of Practice, and the American Nurses Association Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statements. I find myself agreeing with the viewpoints of Bekemeier and Butterfield. They bring to light many entries where nursing care is focused more in response to an injury or disease process, rather than providing nursing on a larger scale with a preventative connotation. The verbiage in many areas of

Codes of ethics contain a coherent set of normative principles underlying a nurse’s purpose and associated values (Vanlaere and Gastmans, 2007). Two perspectives of ethics are the ethics of justice and the ethics of care (Botes, 2000). The ethics of justice constitutes an ethical perspective in terms of which ethical decisions are made on the basis of universal principles and rules, and in an impartial and verifiable manner with a view to ensuring the fair and equitable treatment of all people (Botes, 2000). The ethics of care, on the other hand, constitutes an ethical approach in terms of which involvement, harmonious relations and the needs of others play an important part in ethical decision making in each ethical situation (Botes, 2000).

On a daily basis there is a lot of thought and focus directed at these patients to assure they are getting quality medical care; you may have caught a medication error, made multiple phone calls, waited on hold for what seems like forever, waited on doctors, ran to another floor all to get a patient something they needed or wanted, or may the nurse noticed an important change in the patients status that could dramatically affect their outcome. Most times the patient does not see or not even know about these behind the scenes battles to ensure quality care. Conversely, most often, especially when considering a patient in the hospital setting, our perception is our reality. Patients often do not know the ins and outs of procedure and protocol and rely solely on their perception of the care they are receiving. Studies have shown that patients desire to be perceived and cared for as individuals. Lying in that bed waiting on a nurse for 20 minutes for pain medication may just translate into lack of care on the nurses’ part to the patient but in reality the nurse was caught in another room with a different patient with a situation he or she couldn’t walk away from. Often nurses are stressed which can also convey a certain harshness to patients. In other cases maybe the job has become so repetitive that the nurse