Problem:
Provide a reply to this post with references please. What information can you add that would help support the responses of your peers?
Ask your peers a question for clarification about. I need a reply to this and references please: During my first clinical shift this semester, we were actually faced with a bit of an ethical dilemma with certain policies the hospital appeared to have in place. The facility that I am completing my clinical time is a single floor medical-surgical unit with about 20 patient rooms. In addition, there are six emergency rooms, three ICU rooms, and one hospice room. It is a level three hospital and any patients that are critical are generally transported to a higher level of care hospital thirty minutes away.
The ethical dilemma occurred for a hospice patient at the facility who had been on home hospice care but due to the fact that this person lived alone and hospice care was only there during the day, the patient no longer felt like they could take care of themselves at home at night and did not want to be alone. The hospital initially granted the patients request to be admitted to the hospice room at the hospital. This suited the patient very well because they could stay in their hometown and it was easiest for family and friends to visit them whenever possible.
After a few days at the facility, a hospice coordinator approached my preceptor who was caring for this patient and stated that the patient did not meet the requirements to continue receiving care at the facility and either needed to be admitted back to home hospice healthcare or be transported to a hospice house thirty minutes away. There are certain policies in place to qualify for hospice care and in addition there are certain policies in place at this facility that must be met for a patient to qualify to stay at the facility's hospice room (Godfrey, 2024).
To my preceptor and I, as well as the facility's nurse manager, this was both a moral and ethical dilemma and breached the nurse's Code of Ethics. Firstly, the patient could no longer care for themselves at home even with hospice care and did not want to be alone, so there was no way that they could be discharged home. The only other option was to have them transported to the hospice house thirty minutes away and this felt morally wrong because the patient did not wish to go there because their family and friends would not be able to visit them during their final days.
My preceptor and nurse manager advocated for my patient very well and finally at the end of the day, the nurse manager spoke with the hospice director in the region and while looking into the specific policy it was determined that the patient did meet the criteria to qualify for hospice care at the facility after all. If we had not advocated for our patient, this may never have been found and the patient could have suffered more by being moved to a facility in which they did not wish to go and suffered the stress of not being able to see their family and friends during their final days of living. Need Assignment Help?