Patient's Suicide Attempts Case

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The Case of a Patient’s Suicide Attempt

The suicide attempt case in this article by Jie. L(2015) is based on an incident that occurred in Australia .A patient named Mr. Green who was terminally ill with an aggressive form of prostate cancer was informed that he only had 4-6weeks to live and Mr. Green deciding to confide in a nurse that he had suicide ideations and thoughts. The patient however asked the nurse to keep his suicide ideations a secret putting the nurse in the most ethical of dilemmas. Ethically she was bound to respect the patient’s right, but was this a case of morally doing the right thing or ethically doing the right thing?

The nurse is faced with making the ethical decision to share the patient’s suicide ideations

with the physician and team members involved in the patient’s care without consenting with the patient. Nurses encounter many situations, which put them in ethically compromising complex positions everyday but according to the American Nurses Association (2001) The Nurse’s code of Ethics Provision 4 describes that “ The nurse has authority, accountability, and responsibility for nursing practice; makes decisions, and takes action consistent with the obligation to promote health and to provide optimal care” in a safe environment (pp. 15).
The nurse in this situation could have decided to maintain confidentiality, as it is a violation of the patient’s right that she share any information divulged to her in confidence. But had she kept quiet, the necessary measures would not have been initiated to prevent the patient from actually committing suicide. (Polit & Beck. 2017) describe that “ not all problems are amenable to research inquiry, Questions of moral or ethical nature cannot be researched” (pp.73)
The article by Jie .L (2015) also goes on to mention that, when the suicide attempt ideations were shared with the health care team involved in Mr. Green’s care, the nursing team was able to put in place a suicide protocol which consisted of strict hospital monitoring of Mr. Green to prevent self harm on his part, nursing staff assessing and identifying the possible reasons why Mr. Green may have thought about suicide. My recommendation would have also been to provide Mr. Green with ongoing nursing intervention and communication to deal with the possible risks associated with his thoughts of suicide. Eventually, a collaborative intervention from the healthcare team to provide Mr. Green granted him good nursing care where he later transitioned into palliative care services with no attempts of suicide. The patient later died peacefully with no intentions of self-harm 76 days post discharge in the presence of his loved ones and pastors.
In my opinion, though difficult to research such a sensitive topic, a starting point of gathering confidential quantitative data on how many terminally ill patients have had suicide ideations, how soon most have died after finding about their terminal diagnosis, how effective communication and intervention helped minimize the thoughts of suicide.