Answer 3 for DNP 815 Describe a recent or current ethical issue you have faced in nursing practice, or which has attained national attention Inadequate resources and staffing

Answer 3 for DNP 815 Describe a recent or current ethical issue you have faced in nursing practice, or which has attained national attention

Inadequate resources and staffing

Although this may not be an ethical issue put on individual nurses, healthcare executives and nurse managers should understand the lack of resources and inadequate staffing regarding patient care. As healthcare costs continue to rise, nurse managers are at odds regarding budgeting constraints and patient needs. When medical facilities have scarce resources, patients are at risk of not receiving proper care leaving nurses to make difficult decisions.

Hard decisions may also need to be made when facilities are faced with inadequate staffing levels. When there is not enough staff for patients, nurses do not have the time to do everything needed for each patient. Patient needs can include recovery times or even addressing the patient’s emotional and physical needs. A nurses’ moral obligations to patients are compromised due to work restraints and stress overload. They are left with mental struggles trying to decipher where they should focus their priorities.

This study revealed a gap between nurses’ thoughts and practices through the ethical decision-making process. They failed to lead their thought to moral practice. It also implies that moral sensitivity could positively affect nurses’ ethical decision-making. To make nurses morally sensitive, exposing them to various clinical cases would be helpful. Additionally, ethics education and clinical ethics supporting services are valuable for improving nurses’ ethical decision-making. If nurses improved their ethical decision-making regarding end-of-life care, their patients could experience a better quality of death.

Reference

Abou Hashish E. A. (2017). Relationship between ethical work climate and nurses’ perception of organizational support, commitment, job satisfaction and turnover intent. Nursing ethics, 24(2), 151–166. https://doi.org/10.1177/0969733015594667