End-of-Life Care Ethical Dilemma

Ethical Dilemma
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Last summer, I took up a volunteer student nurse practice at Boston Children's home. A nurse, who happened to be my supervisor, was caught up in an ethical dilemma one day. A child in an operating room was undergoing a heart surgery. As per the rules, the family is not allowed in the operation room. Once the family found out that the surgery had failed and their son was dying, they requested the nurse to allow them to be with him while he died. The nurse was torn in between doing what’s best for the family and the patient and the rigid hospital rules of the operation room. She chose to follow the rules. They were only allowed to get into the operation after the baby was long gone and the chest had already been stitched back.
The family came back the next day after the child had passed on and requested the nurse to allow them to view the body while in the morgue before they left for home. Well still, the rigid rules could not allow this. What the nurse did was that she told them to meet her at the chapel. She went to the morgue, warmed the body, wrapped him in a new piece of blanket, put a cup on his head and took him to the chapel. The family wrote a thank you later to the nurse but they still pointed out their disappointment of not allowing them to be with the boy while he died. This disturbed the nurse to a point that she decided to go face the administration; to find out if there was anything that could be done. A discussion which was attended by this family was held which led to the turn round of hospital rules.
Analysis
The story of a nurse above is a good example of end-of-life care ethical dilemma nurses face every day while in their line of duty. It was right for the family to be with the patient during his last moments. However, the hospital rules could not allow this. The nurse upheld such values as respect for human dignity, altruism, responsibility, and sympathy. If it wasn’t for the strict rigid hospital rules, the nurse could have allowed the family into the operation room because she respected human dignity. It was this respect that engineered her subsequent actions. The action of carrying the body to the chapel indicated utmost levels of altruism and sympathy the nurse possessed. Responsibility was exhibited when she decided to go face...