Ethical Dilemma in Healthcare - Article Example

An ethical dilemma is a state in which nurses make choices between the options and the choices they have at their disposal (Fry, Veatch, & Taylor, 2006, pp. 53-54). For that reason, nurses should possess the knowledge and the autonomy necessary in interacting with patients (Davis, Fowler, & Arosker, 2010). Timby Kuhn (2008) contends that nurses often face various ethical dilemmas, such as risky discharge of patients, limitations of resources, and poor standards of care when dealing with patients (Barnett, 2013, pp.197-198). In that case, this treatise seeks to explain a nursing ethical dilemma that I experienced, the persons involved, strategies followed to resolve the problem, and ways in which the situation could have been resolved effectively.

When a medical error causes a patient to lose her eyesight, the medical staff ends up being put in a complex situation. In case they publicly admit the mistake, they end up losing the trust of the people as well as their aptitude to practice medicine. However, by failing to admit their mistake, they end up lying and endangering the lives of other patients as well as bleaching their duty of care.

In 2010, I accompanied my aunt to Trinidad Hospital to get a cataract removed from her right eye. Although the entire procedure was meant to be painless and simple, immediately the surgeon injected some substance which was labeled lidocaine, and my aunt started moaning and shaking her head in pain and discomfort. The nurses realized that something was amiss since they could smell formaldehyde, and had also realized that the bottle had been mislabeled. Consequently, my aunt lost sight in her right eye.

The people who were involved in the entire mishap were my aunt, the surgeon who was to remove the cataract, and the staff who later came following my aunt’s continuous moaning.

Initially, the procedure seemed to be going on as planned until my aunt started screaming and shaking in pain. It was noted that though two nurses and the surgeon had checked as well as verified that indeed the bottle was filled with lidocaine, the surgeon mistakenly injected her with formaldehyde. If the government had come to discover the malpractice, they would have ended up ending their practice and leaving most of the natives without proper healthcare. Consequently, the doctors decided not to inform us of their actions, leaving us to believe that a poisonous fly had hurt my aunt’s eye.

The nurses in this case failed to follow an ethical process as they were not careful enough to ensure that all medicines were labeled appropriately. Additionally, Lipe and Beasley (2004, pp. 233-234) assert that nurses owe their patients a duty of care and the truth regarding their health, but in this case, they failed. For this reason, we had to seek a different opinion from another hospital where it was reported that indeed the surgeon had administered the wrong drugs, causing blindness. What followed were lawsuits, whereby, the hospital was sued for negligence and incompetence and the nurses as well as the surgeon ended up losing their practicing licenses. The court ordered the defendant to compensate the complainant and ordered the closure of the hospital. Although compensation did not solve the health problem, it acted as a warning to other health professionals who are bound to make similar mistakes.