Something I want to explore over the next year or so are the ethical issues tied up in nursing convicts. Especially those who have committed crimes which outrage the modern British morality.
According to the Nursing and Midwifery Council code of professional conduct(NMC, 2008). A key responsibility of nurses is to be their patients advocate. We apply professional knowledge and experience to act as our patients voice. In theory this requires impartiality, but it is impossible to know someone well enough to express their wishes and still be impartial. So if a patient is a rapist, murderer or paedophile this should not change the level of care they receive. Now factor into this the simple truth that nurses are human, and have been raised as most people in this country with a certain morality. Will power alone should be enough to ensure the patient receives professional and adequate clinical care, however it can not influence our interactions or preconceptions about this patient. As a professional you will not let your patient suffer neglect. It is your duty to treat and aid anyone who is in need. However a large part of nursing care is in the patient-nurse bond.
I would also like to ask those of you poor sods who actually read this blog. If you have twenty-eight patients and one is a recently convicted paedophile in need of high care, Would this effect the magnitude of resources you divert from other patients in order to care for this convict?
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- Asclepius
- A Nurse staggering through the mundane and the insane. This blog documents some of my day to day experiences at work. In the interests of patient confidentiality I have to withhold names and locations. All of the opinions expressed herein are my own and do not reflect the opinions or of the NHS who to my knowledge do not read or approve any of my posts.
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2 comments:
I have no idea, to be quite honest. I know what I would want and try to do - treat him or her like any other patient. In order to do this I would remind myself that a) convictions of the innocent can and do happen; and b) if the guilt is certain, then this person has likely suffered greatly in his or her own childhood in order to react in this extreme way. It doesn't excuse them, but it lends a little humanity to the monster.
But until one is actually in this situation you describe, I don't think a call can be made. This is just what I imagine or hope would be the way I reacted.
And before I forget:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/scienceblogs/Ruxi/~3/358256664/the_virophage_a_virus_that_infects_other_viruses.php
That's the "virophage" I was telling you about.
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