Ethical Issues In Nursing

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Management of Care
Nurses are held accountable for a number of things, they have many duties and obligations. Nurses need to have high ethical standards, they need to know what they are doing, be safe, and stay up to date with all the necessary laws and certifications necessary for each individual state. Nurses need to be able to apply all the principles they have learned in order to provide the correct care to a client, and how to protect the patients’ rights. Patients who are in mental hospitals are no different. They have the right to humane treatment just like anyone else. They also have the right to vote, they can press legal charges against another person. Patients can refuse treatment, they fall under the same privacy and confidentiality laws. Aside from those laws they can also communicate with people outside …show more content…

If they need an interpreter, they have a right to one. These patients’ also need to be treated with respect and should not be discriminated against. The need to be protected from harm and neglect. Patients’ have a right to advance directives and the right to have care with the least amount of restrictive measures as possible. Because state laws can vary greatly the nurse is responsible for knowing the specific laws that pertain in the state in which the nurse is practicing. There are also many ethical issues for patients in the mental health setting. Unlike legal issues ethical issues are basically ideas regarding issues that are right or wrong and nurses are constantly confronted with ethical issues regarding clients and their care. There is no clear cut resolution to an ethical dilemma therefore nurses must use ethical principles to guide them. The ethical principles a nurse should adhere to are beneficence, autonomy, justice, fidelity, and veracity. Beneficence is doing good, autonomy is the clients rights to make his/her own decisions, justice is fair treatment, fidelity is loyalty, and veracity is

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