Ethics Question

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The patient requires a 2 person......what, bath?

the patient who requires a 2 person is refusing to have a bath.

I am not so sure how this is an ethical dilemma unless it is very clear that the patient has ignored all personal hygene yet still chooses to refuse a bath....but is refusing a bath imposing on your obligation as a nurse and as a personal belief and personal hygene. Some Examples of ethical dilemmas

1. Pro-choice versus pro-life. This issue affects nurses personally. Many of the positions nurses assume in this dilemma are influenced by their own beliefs and values. How does a nurse care for a patientwho has had an abortion, when the nurse considers abortion murder? Can that nurse with very opposing values support that patient’s right to choose, her autonomy? A woman that has gone through IVF/fertility is having a selective reduction of half of the embryos.....you are strictly pro-life.
   
2. Freedom versus control. Does a patient have the right to make choices for one’s self that may result in harm, or should the nurse prevent this choice? For example, a patient wants to stop eating, but the nurse knows the consequences will harm the patient. Does the nurse have the “right” to force the patient to eat? You cannot "force" a patient with anorexia to eat yet they are starving to death.
   
3. Truth telling versus deception. This is another issue that nurses may have to deal with, especially when families want to deny telling the patient the truth about the medical condition. What should a nurse do when a family insists telling the patient the prognosis will cause harm? How can a nurse know if this is true? Does the patient have the right to know? The family hiding that the forgetfullness of Mom is actually alzheimers.........or that that the cancer diagnosis is actually that the patient has been given a life expectancy of a few months and the family insists that the patient not "know" for it will disturb their "will to live"
   
4. Another dilemma involves the distribution of resources. Who should get the limited resources? For example, nurses working with patients that are in a vegetative state; should these patients be left on life support? Look at the cost of maintaining these patients. These patients are consuming resources that could be used for patients in whom such costly interventions, if available, could save their lives. What is the role of the nurse when a family wants to continue life support for a medically futile family member? The parents of a child that has been in a persistent vegetative state for 20 years want to stop feeding/hydration.
   
5. Empirical knowledge versus personal belief. In these dilemmas, research based knowledge in nursing is contrasted to beliefs gained from such things as religious beliefs. For example, what should a nurse do when a patient is admitted to the hospital that desperately needs a transfusion to live but has the belief that transfusions are unacceptable? The nurse knows this patient will die without the transfusion. How does that nurse deal with the patient’s family who supports the family member’s choice and still be supportive of the patient’s and family’s right to this decision? This occurs frequently with Jehovah witnesses and the refusal of blood transfusion.....What if it was a child involved in a bike accident with a splenic rupture and needs surgery and blood transfusions.The parents are refusing blood and maybe the surgery itself.