The word ‘ethics’ refers to a system of moral codes and principles that groups of people or communities observe (McCarthy and Gastmans, 2015). Ethics are not components of the legal system, but they establish actions that are right or wrong in specific situations. Furthermore, they guide people’s day-to-day conducts. In nursing practice, there are rules and regulations that professional bodies establish as well as those that are not formally established (Musto, Rodney, and Vanderheide, 2015). The American Nursing Association (ANA), established in 1897, is a body in charge of laying down formal laws and informal ethical principles that guide the nursing community in the United States of America. As a result, nurses are widely confronted by numerous ethical dilemmas in which they have to choose between upholding their beliefs and values and obeying the set nursing guidelines. The purpose of this paper is to discuss a paediatric ethical dilemma encountered in the clinical setting.
Children often have a reduced capacity to make individual clinical or medical decisions. Therefore, parents and guardians often make the decisions concerning the treatment of children in healthcare setting (Musto, Rodney, and Vanderheide, 2015). Social workers are allowed to make decisions on behalf of the children in case the parent or guardian is unavailable or has a diminished capacity as a result of disease or intoxication. A healthcare worker may also make a decision concerning the treatment of a child in cases of emergencies, especially then the guardians or parents are unavailable (McCarthy and Gastmans, 2015).
One of the most contentious ethical issues that nurses experience in paediatric practice relates to parents who prevent their children from being vaccinated or immunised. For example, a seven-month-old child was admitted to the paediatric unit with a respiratory illness. While taking their medical history, the parents revealed that they have never taken her for any of the scheduled immunisations (McCarthy and Gastmans, 2015). The parents argued that there was a very low risk for the child to catch the diseases because other children around her had been immunised. Notably, the parents are staunch followers of a religious sect that discourages the use of contemporary medical services. In fact, they had only brought the child to the hospital because the prayers and anointing they had received in a church did not cure their child’s condition. The child had respiratory distress and looked stunted (Musto, Rodney, and Vanderheide, 2015).
The second provision in the American Nursing Association Code of Ethics states that the primary responsibility of the nurse is his patient. In the situation described above, the nurse has a duty towards the wellness of the paediatric patient in all aspects. The third principle in the ANA code of ethics states that the nurse is widely charged with the responsibility of ensuring the health, safety, and rights of the patient (McCarthy and Gastmans, 2015). Therefore, the nurse ought to take charge and act appropriately to take care of the patient’s lack of immunisation. Provision number five of the ethics code states that a nurse has authority, accountability, and responsibility to her patients (Sasso et al. 2015). Therefore, the nurse is responsible for seeking help for the paediatric patient who has not been immunised and for ensuring that the situation is corrected to avoid morbidity or even mortality (Musto, Rodney, and Vanderheide, 2015). The fifth provision outlines that the nurse has a duty towards herself and other people. One of the duties that nurses are charged with is taking vaccinations to keep them from getting sick. The nurse should ensure that all patients under her care are immunised. It requires collaboration with social workers, religious clergy, and even the legal system to ensure the rights of the child to receive the relevant immunisations are upheld (McCarthy and Gastmans, 2015).
Reference
McCarthy, J., & Gastmans, C. (2015). Moral distress A review of the argument-based nursing ethics literature. Nursing ethics, 22(1), 131-152.
Musto, L. C., Rodney, P. A., & Vanderheide, R. (2015). Toward interventions to address moral distress Navigating structure and agency. Nursing Ethics, 22(1), 91-102.
Sasso, L., Bagnasco, A., Bianchi, M., Bressan, V., & Carnevale, F. (2015). Moral distress in undergraduate nursing students A systematic review. Nursing Ethics, 0969733015574926.
