What are the ethical concerns around Community Treatment Orders?

What Are the Ethical Concerns around Community Treatment Orders?
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What Are the Ethical Concerns around Community Treatment Orders?
Introduction
A community treatment order (CTO) refers to an action authorized by the law in psychiatric treatment where force has to be applied on a patient (Guillen, 2011). Force is considered important in situations when the state of the patient is at great risk and care providers cannot administer medication upon their will (Rynor, 2010). The cases CTO are common in community health, especially when the case being prevented can spread to other patients and cause severe infection and/or injury. To comply with the laws of the International Council of Nurses, it is advised that the nursing department for community health observe the basics of evidence-based nursing to improve their deliverability as well as provide evidential aid to cases involving sensitive matters against the will of patients as in CTO (Rynor, 2010). Patients who have the issues of non-compliance with prescribed medication procedures as well as those who show an intense increase in the use of violence in psychiatric treatment may require the use of force to contain them as a measure of protecting fellow patients at the facility as well as the medical officials (Burns & Molodynski, 2014). Most governments and the private sector have developed the urge of using the kind of treatment across the globe. This has led to fresh discussions with regards to the rights of the patient to have a choice of what is to be done to them. As a result of these developments, it is important to review the ethical issues that surround the idea of implementing community treatment orders in hospitals.
Ethical Issues Used In This Method of Treatment Involving the Use of the CTO
Beneficence
The theory of beneficence in medical ethics states that the benefits of action by a medical personnel should be of benefit to the patient or th patients involved in the system. The intention of the use of force in the CTO method of treatment is meant to help the patient to avoid skipping important medical treatments, which could pose danger to their lives especially when not undertaken (Snow & Austin, 2009). For this reason, it is a clear justification that the patients may be in deep need of the medication and hence it is aimed at saving their lives. Some of the patients with mental illnesses that may cause them to act violently and aggressively can lead to personal injury or injury to the nurses or fellow patients. Using force to administer medication to the patients with such conditions helps in saving both the lives of the patient, the doctor, and other patients in the health facility. Hence, the benefits of the action are justified as beneficial to all parties, including the patients themselves.
Social paternalism
Another important principle to...