Medical practitioners have on various occasions have been facing challenges as far as making crucial decisions concerning patient visitation. A good example is a situation whereby a certain patient is terminally ill and has contagious disease which is a threat to other human beings or when a patient is hostile and there is possibility of attacking visitors. In most cases, hostile and patient with chronic illness such as Ebola and swine flu scare are usually placed in quarantine under close care. As such, the physician is usually under crossroads in deciding whether to allow visitation or not to such patients. The area of contention arising from this medical practice is based on the positions that law and ethics hold as far as this medical practice is concerned. Therefore, medical practitioners are usually left in dilemmas on whether to consent to visitation despite the dangers posed by the patient to the public or go against the moral and legal view. In this direction, it is vital that the key areas of contention regarding this issue be discussed to look at what position physicians are supposed to take in regards to such an uncertainty.
California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (2015) assert that, patient visitation is a constitution right which gives patient the freedom to get visitors. However, the guidelines and the limits to this right have not been specified in the constitution. This has forced health institutions to come up regulations to regulate the visitation. California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform observe that visitation improves the quality of life of the patients hence ought to be allocated adequate time (California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, 2015). This practice is instrumental in that it prevents patients from feeling isolated or getting depressed due to medical suffering. Another concerning areas is patients’ capacity to make decisions as to who should be allowed visitation rights. Notably, some patients may not make informed decisions concerning the list of visitors and this may put the management under pressure as who should be allowed to see the patient. Under this case a surrogate is usually given the duty to decide who can visit. However, the surrogate person out of malice can make unethical decisions which are against the wish of the patient thus locking out visitors who are not in good terms with the surrogate (Iverson et al., 2014). On the other hand, visiting hours and supervised visits interfere with the freedom and privacy of the patient since the law is not clear as to how the two ought to be conducted. The current regulations have given the patient and the hospital management the exclusive rights on the visitation issue disregarding the view of other concerned parties such as family and friends (Nuss et al., 2014). This is bring ethical concerns whether the two ought to have the all the rights to control visitation. However, in the preference of who have to visit the patient, the family unit has been given a special place in having an upper hand regarding visits. The law recognizes the family units more than other parties such as work colleagues and friends. This is discriminating as far as visitation is concern.
Conclusively, visitation is a contentious issue which needs to be handled with utmost care to prevent conflicts. Thus, it is vital to evaluate visitation rights with the best interest of the patient at hand and allow the stakeholders involved in a patient case need to have an agreement which include the concerns of all parties involved.
References
California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (2015). Visitation Guide for California Long Term Care Facilities and Hospitals. Retrieved from http://www.canhr.org/reports/VisitationRightsGuide.pdf
Iverson, E., Celious, A., Kennedy, C. R., Shehane, E., Eastman, A., Warren, V., & Freeman, B. D. (2014). Factors affecting stress experienced by surrogate decision makers for critically ill patients: Implications for nursing practice. Intensive and Critical Care Nursing, 30(2), 77-85.
Nuss, T., Kelly, K. M., Campbell, K. R., Pierce, C., Entzminger, J. K., Blair, B. K., & Walker, J. L. (2014). The impact of opening visitation access on patient and family experience. Journal of Nursing Administration, 44(7/8), 403-410.
Riley, B. H., White, J., Graham, S., & Alexandrov, A. (2014). Traditional/restrictive vs patient-centered intensive care unit visitation: perceptions of patients’ family members, physicians, and nurses. American journal of critical care, 23(4), 316-324.
