Within Australia, the ER department has a duty to act when a patient is presented (Atkins, De Lacey, & Britton, 2014, p.41). Accident and emergency departments critically rely on the triage nurses' ability to assess the patients’ needs, to determine allocation, and delivery of time-sensitive emergency care and safety to its community. Internationally, many countries have adopted a standardized assessment instruments for patients presenting to the ER (Hodge, Hugman, Varndell, and Howes, 2013). Since April 2002, Australia has utilised The Australasian Triage Scale (ATS) that assess utility, validity, reliability and safety to categorise a patient's priority for care (Australian Government, Department of Health and Ageing, 2009). According to …show more content…
The six tenets of ethical principles of nursing practice, help incorporate the four principles of autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence and justice (Robichaux, 2017). It is unknown how many patients Anna's nurse is currently caring for, other than knowing it is a busy night in the ER. The nurses' position is highly respected by Australian society, hence, the power paradigm should be acknowledged by the nursing individual, and used to incorporate the four principles of nursing practice, to engage the patient in the nursing process (Butts & Rich, 2016, p. 98); this encourages a therapeutic relationship where trust is …show more content…
The nurse has an ethical obligation to advocate that the doctor completes this duty linking moral obligations with the patients need and reflecting utility and absolving vicarious liability. This demonstrates the Aristotelian principle of justice, where the idea of fairness is a virtue (Robichaux, 2017). This is not a new situation as ED's balance moral equality with patient deterioration and escalation daily, as part of their service (Atkins, De Lacey, & Britton, 2014, p.40). Deontological theory supports this concept in healthcare ethics, wherefore each human being is worthy of respect and dignity (Robichaux, 2017).
Jeremy Bentham, the moral philosopher credited with the theory of Traditional utilitarianism, said "truth is that it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong", based not on an individual but as on society as a whole (Crimmins, 2017). Secondly, another theorist, John Stuart Mill applied aspects of Bentham’s' utilitarianism with empiricism; where the value is incurred through experiences, of quality and quantity, and actions equate to what is right; therefor the state of total good, rests in one’s knowledge and is morally relevant (Butts & Rich, 2016, p.