Legal Aspects of nursing, Homework 5 - Essay Example

Facts In this case there are various notable facts that will greatly help when giving the judgment. In addition these facts will clearly reveal any misconduct and its perpetrator. In the career history of the subject nurse, she has carried herself with dignity and as such she has gained respect for her competence and dedication. However, suspicions have emerged that this nurse has been diverting narcotics for her personal use without following the laid down procedures. Further, the organization that this nurse is working in has recently installed a computerized medical cabinet to supplement the traditional paper medication administration record (MAR).

Consequently, every nurse is expected to fill their handwritten MAR’s and they should match with the computerized records. On further, investigation it is noted that the nurses fill their MARs later and they con fessed to having forgotten some of the drugs they had taken from the medical cabinet. Action In a case that this case goes to trial the defendant in this case would be the health facility while subject nurse the plaintiff would be the. The reason as to why the nurse would be the complainant is that she will be defending her right from being suspended.

In any case, the facility would have gotten justice from suspending her. Further, this matter should not be forwarded to the state board of nursing. The reason for this is because this is an issue that has no enough evidence of the misconduct of the nurse. Moreover, the issue is more on the implementation of modern monitoring systems in the facility rather than on the misconduct of a practitioner. Further, it is important to note that this is a civil matter in which the defendant wants to be reinstated in her previous employment.

As such the matter will be handled by the industrial court but not a criminal court. a) Did the facility have sufficient evidence to suspend the nurse? According to the facts in this case it is apparent that this hospital had a mechanism that was not competent. The mechanism should have been overseen by single personnel to ensure that the nurses filled in the MRAs promptly. Moreover, other nurses have confessed that they had at one time forgotten about the actual quantities they had taken from the medial cabinet consequently filling arbitrary figures.

On this regards, there are many loopholes in this mechanism and hence the biggest responsibility lies with the institution and not with the nurses. However, ethics have it that the nurses should conduct themselves competently (Roussel, Swansburg, & Swansburg, 2006). In this regard, the facility does not have sufficient evidence to suspend the nurse. The most sensible and practical action would have been to streamline the recording procedures. In so doing the nurses would fill in the MAR immediately after taking the narcotics. a) How should the testimony of the other nurses in the unit affect the outcome of this case?

The rule of law should not be biased or discriminatory. In this essence, the testimony of the other nurses weakens the evidence/suspicions and the ground on which the institution has suspended the subject nurse on. These testimonies have shown that it is the institution that has created a loophole in the dispensation of narcotics hence it has become vulnerable to misappropriation. As such, if this nurse was to be suspended, then all the other nurses who testified to having recorded wrong