Discussion Board Response 1: Ethical and Legal Implications of Nursing Negligence.
Introduction
As a professional nurse, your vital role in the medical industry is to act as an advocate to the patient. As a nurse, you have to check and ensure that the patient receives the right drug, the right dosage, at the right time and the patient has the right individual factors that cannot lead to harm by the drug administered. The patient and the patient’s family trusts the nurse, and in case of any harm resulting from negligence, then the trust is betrayed. Negligence has both legal and ethical implications on both the prescriber, the pharmacist, the patient and the patient’s family.
Pharmacist
The pharmacist has a right to refuse a prescription made by the nurse. This pharmacist failed to owner this. The pharmacist would be immune to prosecution if he had refused to give the prescribed dosage if he saw it dangerous to the patient. The pharmacist also has to supervise the patient’s medication, this pharmacist failed to meet this duty. The pharmacist failed to obey the principles of nonmaleficence and beneficence. The pharmacist has to face the prosecution and his license might be withdrawn.
According to the tortious law and civil laws, the pharmacist failed to owner his duties hence lead to the medical errors that harmed the patient’s health. The pharmacist is therefore liable and should be charged in the law court.
The prescriber
The nurse was negligent because he or she did not seek consultation from the physician before doing the prescription. Prescriptions are supposed to be done by the physicians. It is a general rule that a nurse must consult a physician when she wants to do unfamiliar administration, this nurse failed to do this. Whether intentional or unintentional, the nurse failed to vthe nursing principle of nonmaleficence. The nurse has a role of duty care, the patients put their trust on the professional ability of the nurse, the nurse must therefore respect this trust. This nurse did not obey the principle of fidelity.
The nurse also failed to get the consent of the patient. This violates the right of the patient. The patient was to be informed about the drug, or his family was to be involved in this in case the patient way an infant. The nurse is legally liable for the harms caused by the drug overdose. According to the law of tort, the nurse is charged under professional negligence and malpractice.
The doctrine of respondeat superior holds that, the employer is responsible for any misconduct done by the employees under its jurisdiction. Therefore, the nurse is not directly sued by the patient’s family, the hospital is liable for the professional misconduct done by the nurse. The hospital may be forced to compensate the patient or their operation license might be withdrawn by the court of law.
The patient and his family
Since the patient in this scenario is a child, he is treated as a minor, therefore, his parents are awarded the contractual capacity to act on his behalf. The patient is affected by the accident caused by the medical staff, the priority is to give the patient free medical provisions aimed at reducing the harm caused by the overdose of the drug. The staff must acknowledge that they have done a mistake and the nurse must give an empathic apology to the family of the patient.
The hospital needs to provide essential compensation regarding the right and cost of medication and rehabilitation plus any other expenses resulting from the incident. The compensation should not be as a need to bribe and assume fault. The family have a right to sue the hospital for negligence that caused medical harm on their child, but it is not morally right to sue the junior medical staffs as this may lead to a repeat of the same incident shortly.
Strategies to guide in ethical and legal decision making.
- Application of the five rights;
- Right drug; check the name and the label of the drug to avoid giving a mistaken drug to a patent.
- Right dose; keenly check the order before giving the drug.
- Right client/patient; check the two names of the patients, ask the patient to introduce himself and you can use the electronic code scanner to identify the patient to avoid confusion and mistaken identity related errors.
- Right route; check the order and ascertain if the client can use the preferred route to take the drugs.
- Right time; check when is the last time that such a dose was given then calculate the next appropriate time to use the drugs.
- Use of effective communication
- Attentive listening; listen attentively to the patients before prescribing a drug. Take note of their ages and other medically important details.
- Accurate documentation and reporting; be keen while documenting a drug particular. Avoid multitasking as this may lead to improper documentation hence errors may arise.
Conclusion.
As much as it is unethical for the nurse to cause medical errors in the hospital, it is a collective responsibility of the parents, the pharmacist and the nurse to inspect and ensure the patient receives the drug that obeys the five rights. Every stakeholder has a role to play in ensuring safety of the patient. On the other hand, the word negligence is a simple term hence the court expects the word gross negligence to charge the hospital.