Ethical Issues; Hiding Medicine In Food

Ethical Issues; Hiding Medicine In Food

The problem here is that the patient, J.M a 48-year-old male Navaho tribe member has attempted suicide but is taken to a psychiatrist who has recommended that the patient take certain drugs to cure his illness but the patient has refused his medication. The unreasonable refusal of the patient’s failure to take his medication is frustrating to the psychiatrist who has advised the nurse to put pills in his food. This strategy saves time and effort used quarreling with the patient. The patient has discovered that there were some pills hidden in his hidden and the patent is upset. The question is whether it is ethically correct to hide medicine in a patient’s food? An ethical issue to realize in this case study is that it is ethical for the nurse to crush pills into a patient’s food if the patient does not appreciate the decision made such as stating the negative effects of the medicine is recommended. Another ethical issue to note is such an act can lead to mistrust between a nurse and a patient thus nurses should consider this relationship (Olsen, 2012).

Healthcare providers should are bound to the duty of care patients, but their health administration should meet ethical and legal requirements as well as consideration of the patients status or opinion.

This issue is very critical to the patient and the way the nurse is supposed to handle such as situation. The aim of taking food is to survive, and more than surviving, sharing food defines and strengthens the social relationship. For this case, J.M may feel social isolated and betrayed where he discovered pills in his food.  Also, J.M could make decisions but limited where the patients do not seem to understand the consequences of their choices. For J.M to influence his medication, he should be able to define the outcomes of his health both positive and negative (Olsen, 2012). , J.M should also describe adverse effects of the medicine.

There are several solutions to consider as a nurse to make sure that the patients take their medication. First, the psychiatrist should observe the patient’s self-worth by including him in a decision making process. In this forum, the psychiatrist will discuss the negative impact of not taking medication and the patient will discuss their treatment goals. The second solution is realizing whether the patient can justify the consequences of their decisions. The psychiatrist ought to test the decision-making capacity of the patient through intellectual understanding. For this case, J.M is unable to justify the consequences of his decision as by not taking the drugs, may lead to serious depression and may commit suicide again since he is a victim of alcohol abuse. Hence crushing pills in his foods is the most humane action to save him from the problem of depression. The third solution is consideration of the patient’s reasoning before his impairment. Since the patient’s suicidal ideation may have been influenced by alcohol abuse which might have caused depression to the patient, the patient would have considered such medication. This defines that the psychiatric is not morally bound to agree to the decision of J.M declining medication.

The above solutions have their pros and cons and should be considered when deciding on whether to crush pills on a patients foods. The advantage of creating a relationship with the patient through making a decision is that the patient can disclose the reason for not taking medicine and through this, the psychiatric or the nurse will be able to educate him on the effects of not obeying medication. A disadvantage of using this type of solution is that the patient may have lost trust in the nurse for putting medicine in his food thus may fail to disclose the reason for not taking their medication (Morton et al., 2017).

The advantage of using testing the decision-making capacity of the patient is that it helps determine if the patient realizes the consequences of declining medication and how such decisions can affect their lives. This may help the psychiatric devise other forms of medication where the patient is not comfortable with the preferred medication. Also, the nurse is confident of the decision they make where the patient lack knowledge of these consequences. The disadvantage of this solution is that if the patients are fully aware of the disadvantages and advantages of their recommended medication, there may lack other forms of medication to solve their problem thus may lead to the execution of their initial mission of committing suicide.

The advantage of consideration is that it helps the nurse realize the real cause of the patient impairment and which will help the nurse determine whether they are supposed to accept the reason for the client to decline his medication. The disadvantage of using this solution is that in case of wrong interpretation of the patient impairment, may lead to a justification thus accepting the decision for the client to decline his medication (Gunn & Taylor, 2014).

Finally, the best solution is the second one of testing the decision-making capacity of the patient. For this case, the nurse will be certain of the decision they make and that they are not illegally doing the process. The law prescribes a Duty of Care on healthcare professionals to administer the best medication under a professional opinion (Morton et al., 2017). Where the client lack full realization of the consequences of their decision, it’s the duty of the health provider to offer the best medication lest the healthcare provider might be charged with negligence.

Reference

Olsen, D. P. (2012). Ethical issues: putting the meds in the applesauce. AJN The American Journal of Nursing, 112(3), 67-69.

Morton, P. G., Fontaine, D., Hudak, C. M., & Gallo, B. M. (2017). Critical care nursing: a holistic approach (p. 1056). Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Gunn, J., & Taylor, P. (2014). Forensic psychiatry: clinical, legal and ethical issues. CRC Press.