FOSTERING DIGNITY AND RESPECT IN

CARE
INTRODUCTION
In this report there will be a wide discussion on ethics, respect and dignity to Mrs. Wang; keeping in
mind her problems and her family’s request, and the strategies a hospital must design in order to
facilitate their patients with the best.

Case study
Question 1: What are the ethical concepts, such as, those pertaining to freedom, rights, responsibilities
and the use of power in care which you need to consider in Mrs. Wang’s situation and what kind of
strategies could those involved in her support employ to support and respect her dignity?

Answer: A hospital is a place where all the patients suffering from various illness and diseases comes to
find the solutions to their issues and gets admitted for their best advice, care, support and
recommendations of the doctors. The stakeholders of the hospital are equally responsible for every
patient. The helpless patients become the responsibility of the hospital authority. The doctors as well as
nurses are not allowed, at any case, to show some kind of negligence to the patients in terms of giving
treatments to them. It is the major responsibility of all the doctors, nurses and the management of the
hospital to cater each and every person comes to the hospital in the form of patient or the patient
family. It is the firm duty of the hospital to look for the best treatment for the patient and facilitate them
so that they could feel better and relaxed in the place. The hospitals code of conduct must not humiliate
the patients right and to treat them with respect and show some dignity.

Ethical concepts within care

Respect
Respect is basically to treat someone with esteem, concern or appreciation. It is to protect and
safeguard someone’s privacy and let them make their own personal choices and decisions. Making
patients feel respected, or valued as a person, is a multi-faceted task that involves more than
recognising autonomy. While patients’ views of respect do not determine what respect means, these
patients expressed important intuitions that may be of substantial conceptual relevance.

Respecting patients
The importance to respecting patients and participants in a care is known thoroughly. It is compulsory
for the authority in care to respect its patients and it is an important task to know the governance of the
rights of individuals. The patients especially take respect in other sense. Respect to them means to be
taken complete relevance to their feelings and needs. Patients look for the respect in a way that satisfies
their needs at once and fulfills their demands. (Dickert & NE., 2009)

Making patients feel respected, or valued as a person, is a multi-faceted task that involves more
than recognising autonomy. While patients’ views of respect do not determine what respect
means, these patients expressed important intuitions that may be of substantial conceptual
relevance. (Dickert & NE., 2009)

Regarding the case of Mrs. Wang, she must be given complete respect in a way that she must be
informed completely about the situation in the language she easily understands with the help of
interpreters or her family’s assistance. But keeping in mind Mr. Wang’s situation as to full fill
the demand of the family, she must not be completed informed about her illness. Instead she
must be satisfied with some other disease. She must be informed that her illness is not very
serious.

Dignity
Dignity means to treat someone with esteem by taking in consideration their honor, with politeness and
equality, and to treat someone in a way that they want to be treated with. If an individual is respectfully
or given respect as per their needs, he will feel dignified. If a person is treated respectfully or given
respect, he will feel dignified. Respecting someone is to respect their personal rights and their choices.
In the case of the hospital, the person is that patient who needs to be treated with respect so that he or
she could feel dignified. Dignity is to have the positive vibes that an individual possess for himself. This
includes respect, worth, esteem and honor. (Dickert & NE., 2009)

Mrs. Wang, as per the case must be treated with full dignity and she must be communication in the
language she understanding irrespective of the support from the family, the hospital itself must have
certain channels in order to understand her needs completely. As per the code of medical ethics the
relationship that exist between a physician and the patient relies on trust and it is the responsibility of
the physician and the nurse to put patient’s welfare above but Mrs. Wang is at the last stage of her
illness and to keep her happy at the last time of her age, it is very important to hide the illness from her.
As per the doctor, the patient must be completely aware of the disease he or she is suffering from so as
to make them understand about the nature of ailment they are suffering from and the details of the
care they are provided with. But there are some exceptions, as similar to Mrs. Wang; it is in the ethics of
the doctor and the nurse to not provide the complete knowledge to the patient if he or she is not
capable of understanding it. But this is only applicable to young children and adults with serious illness
that could weaken or damage the cognition of the patient. Relatives often claim and are afraid of the
shock that a patient could receive after getting the complete knowledge of the illness. This is dangerous,
the shock could easily result in a fall and the patient loses the capability of understanding the situation
in fact looses hope of being cured. Although Mrs. Wang is at her last stage but she should also not be
informed about the complete situation. Keeping Mrs. Wang aware of her illness could frighten her. But
in serious cases when there is the chance of recovery, the patient must be completely informed and
prepared. A patient and gentle explanation is always better than hiding the drastic reality. In this case
providing the complete information is important especially when there is a little time left. May be Mrs.
Wang’s agenda would be to spare quality time with her off springs instead of spending time in the
hospital.

Strategies to enhance team work and communication within care

There are certain standardized tools and strategies that must be adopted to reduce the risk and enhance
team work. (Leonard, Graham, & Bonacum, 2004) The interpreter service has been designed in order to
remove the language barriers in order to improve health care facilities. Interpreters are very important
and play a leading role is creating the relationship between the patient and the carer. As per the
research, the number of patients has increased after the introduction of interpreters in Health
Maintenance Organization. But unfortunately after the need of interpreters, they are somehow not
available. (Bischoff, Perneger, Bovier, Loutan, & Stalder, 2003)

Mrs. Wang could be acknowledge completely of what is happening to her with the help of interpreter
but keeping in mind about the request of the family she must be hided from her illness. So the people in
care must react with her gently as this is not a big ailment but must keep his family aware of the
complete situation so as to reduce the risks of blame afterwards.

Question 2: How can the professionals responsible maintain effective communication and use their
interpersonal skills including compassion, dignity and respect to deliver the best care outcomes possible
for Mrs. Wang?

Answer: It is very important for the people in authority to communicate effectively and to adapt such
practices that doesn’t violate the rights of individuals and their respect must be maintained.

Effective communication and team work within care

The communication within the authority themselves and with the patient in care, should be effective in
the reaction to deliver the high quality service and to maintain safety and care. The patient sometimes is
harmed when the communication failure occurs. Therefore to maintain effective communication tools is
very essential in the premises of the hospital especially so as to demolish the complexity of the medical
assistance and care and other related limitations in order to create a safe environment for both the staff
and patients. The effective communication’s objective is to create an environment within which the
individuals could express their feelings and concerns in the common language which is understood by
both the doctor as well as the patient. It is very important for the staff as well in order to remain alert of
the unsafe conditions. (Leonard, Graham, & Bonacum, 2004)

Communication failures are the leading causes of inadvertent patient harm. Effective communication
and teamwork have been assumed, and formal training and assessment in these areas has been largely
absent.

Nursing is all about successful outcomes of each patient and this success could be achieved with the
help of good communication. In order to achieve the success, Nurses and the people in authority must
completely understand the needs of the patients, in order to help them by showing some level of
courtesy and to treat them with kindness. Good communication is important to maintain sincerity. It is
the responsibility of the people in authority to communicate confidentially as this communication is not
only limited to the patient but also with the people surrounded with him or her

Also they should devote time to the patient to communicate with the necessary confidentiality, and
must not forget that this communication includes persons who surround the sick person, which is why
the language of communication should be understood by all those involved in it. Good communication
also is not only based on the physical abilities of nurses, but also on education and experience.
(Kourkouta & Papathanasiou, 2014)

Nursing as a health care science, focuses on serving the needs of human as a biopsychosocial
and spiritual being. Its practice requires not only scientific knowledge, but also interpersonal,
intellectual and technical abilities and skills. This means a composition of knowledge,
clinical work and interpersonal communication (1). Communication is a vital element in
Nursing in all areas of activity and in all its interventions such as prevention, treatment,
therapy, rehabilitation, education and health promotion (2). The nursing process moreover as
a scientific method of exercise and implementation of Nursing, is achieved through dialogue,
through interpersonal environment and with specific skills of verbal communication (3).
As communication we can define the exchange of information, thoughts and feelings among
people using speech or other means. Therapeutic practice involves the oral communication of
public health officials and nurses on the one hand and the patient or his relatives on the other.
It is a two way process. The patient conveys their fears and concerns to their nurse and helps
them make a correct nursing diagnosis. The nurse takes the information and in turn transmits
other information to the patient with discretion and delicacy as to the nature of the disease
and advises with treatment and a rehabilitation plan for health promotion (4).
Effective communication requires an understanding of the patient and the experiences they
express. It requires skills and simultaneously the sincere intention of the nurse to understand
what concerns the patient. To understand the patient only is not sufficient but the nurse must
also convey the message that he/she is understandable and acceptable. It is a reflection of the
knowledge of the participants, the way they think and feel and their capabilities (5).
In order for the nurses to be successful in their work they have to study communication and
interpersonal relations in their education with special courses and internships. They need to
learn the various aspects and applications of communication in various fields of nursing (6).
In this context it is understood that emphasis must be placed on the importance of
communication between nurse and patient and nursing education must focus on
communication skills of nurses.

Language difference
The language difference is a hurdle that is between the physicians and patients. It is very challenging for
the management when the patients do not peak or understand the local language. There is a certain
training that is given within the hospitals to treat the allophone patients so that they could be given
proper treatment, they could be aware of the complete situation of what is happening with them and
their demands could be fulfilled. It is a major hurdle for the primary health care service providers and
they face a lot of challenges regarding this. The migrants hesitate also if they don’t understand the
language of the authority.(Bischoff, Perneger, Bovier, Loutan, & Stalder, 2003)

Mrs. Wang could not understand the language spoken in the premises of the hospital among the nurses
and the doctors. Keeping in mind her age and the request of the people accompanying her she must not
be informed about the situation. So the nurses and the doctors must tackle this situation very politely in
a way that could not disrespect either the patient or his family.