Essay On The Royal Commission Case Study

Old age care services aim to provide consistent support to older adults in their residence or hospice settings to help them accomplish daily activities and maintain a routine. Moreover, other than assisting, aged care facilities also support the patients with equipment and accommodation to rehabilitate from their illness which includes walking ramps, physiotherapy, assistance in personal care, and help in everyday living (Cleland et al. 2021). Mostly these aged care services are funded by the government and provided to people over 65 or young people with disability. In the study of the Royal Commission, the interim report aims to identify the hindrances on aged care as well as major ethical issues practised in elderly residential healthcare settings. The interim report of the Royal Commission focused on the quality of care and safety of older people. This report found shocking negligence in care facilities and explored unmet care needs for even disabled young people (Thomas, 2019). In addition, significant unethical practices in this aged care indicate overemphasis on chemical restraints and reuptake of younger physically disabled patients in old care settings.

 

Ethical principles: The two major ethical violations in aged care in the Royal Commission case study include unkind care facilities and negligence to patients in residential care settings. The ethical principles of healthcare professionals for the patients in this case study include violating beneficence and nonmaleficence (Ostaszkiewicz et al., 2020). The interim report showed that the staff mostly insufficiently trained and undervalued patients with chronic illnesses. Moreover, the commission also explored the unjustified and inhuman nature of care provided by the abusive care facilitators who provide the services emphasizing the transactions more than care (Thomas, 2019). This is beneficence which refers to helping patients with major physical and mental disabilities maintain daily routines such as bathing, eating, medication, and many more. Furthermore, the young adults with disability, who are admitted for long-term care in the old age care homes, are also required to bear poor healthcare services by staff, such as chemical restraints (Dyer et al., 2021). In addition, nonmaleficence refers to doing no harm to the patients and aims to administer necessary interventions intending to benefit the patients.

 

Impact of negligence: These two significant violations of ethical practices can negatively impact patients' health and quality of services and create the worst healthcare system. The negative ethical implication in medical treatment or nursing care leads to distress and risk of injury or psychological harm to any patient (Izquierdo, Duque & Morley, 2021). Moreover, these unaddressed ethical breaches often develop adverse mental and physical health impacts on the patients by developing the chances of harassment, toxic healthcare setting, discrimination, and malice effect on health retraining recovery.

 

Duty of care: Registered nurses' responsibilities and duty of care refer to the rules superimposed on them to behave in a certain way in clinical or healthcare settings. These responsibilities range from identifying significant symptoms of patients, administering appropriate and necessary diagnostic tests, and writing down the medical history of the patients in detail (Salmond & Echevarria, 2017). In addition, taking measures from those tests and providing medications by prior consultation with doctors to alleviate major health issues and symptoms, as well as following up with the patients to assure their comfort and health recovery, are other crucial responsibilities of registered nurses.

 

Rectification of ethical breaches can be derived by following certain rules and positively maintaining specific responsibilities. The nurses can engage in high-quality health care by respecting the patients, maintaining their dignity, and valuing their choices (Cleland et al., 2021). Moreover, the modern way of delivering high-quality treatment is by looking after the symptoms and ongoing assessments and consulting with the patients to address their needs (Anderson & Blair, 2021). In addition, installing CCTV cameras on healthcare premises can be an effective strategy for eradicating negligence. Dedicating to help in daily living activities, preserving integrity in the working environment among other healthcare professionals, addressing feedback and complaints, and acknowledging health needs.

 

Effective strategies can be implemented in healthcare settings to increase efficacy in treating aged care and derive effective healthcare facilities for patients. The strategies can aim to increase job satisfaction of the caregivers and service providers by administering specific beneficial methods such as changing shift structure, providing the training necessary to be an efficient registered nurse, deriving a structure of certain activities to be followed, and increasing the permanent staff. These features can increase patient outcomes and higher treatment efficacy as it will maintain high personal wellbeing and job satisfaction of aged care facilitators as well as accentuate implementation of their knowledge to avoid ethical breaches (Dyer et al. 2020).

 

Anderson, K., & Blair, A. (2021). What have staff got to do with it? Untangling complex relationships between residential aged care staff, the quality of care they provide, and the quality of life of people with dementia. Archives of gerontology and geriatrics, 94, 104378. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.archger.2021.104378

 

 

Cleland, J., Hutchinson, C., Khadka, J., Milte, R., & Ratcliffe, J. (2021). What defines the quality of care for older people in aged care? A comprehensive literature review. Geriatrics & Gerontology International, 21(9), 765-778. 10.1111/ggi.14231

 

 

Dyer, S. M., Valeri, M., Arora, N., Tilden, D., & Crotty, M. (2020). Is Australia over‐reliant on residential aged care to support our older population? The Medical Journal of Australia, 213(4), 156. https://www.mja.com.au/system/files/issues/213_04/mja250670.pdf

 

 

Ibrahim, J. E., Fetherstonhaugh, D., Rayner, J. A., McAuliffe, L., Jain, B., & Bauer, M. (2020). Meeting the needs of older people in Australian residential aged care: A new conceptual model. Australasian Journal on Ageing, 39(2), 148-155. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajag.12796

 

 

Izquierdo, M., Duque, G., & Morley, J. E. (2021). Physical activity guidelines for older people: knowledge gaps and future directions. The Lancet Healthy Longevity, 2(6), e380-e383. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2666-7568(21)00079-9

 

 

McDougall, R. J., Gillam, L., Ko, D., Holmes, I., & Delany, C. (2021). Balancing health worker wellbeing and duty to care: an ethical approach to staff safety in COVID-19 and beyond. Journal of Medical Ethics, 47(5), 318-323. https://jme.bmj.com/content/medethics/47/5/318.full.pdf

 

 

Noroozi, M., Zahedi, L., Bathaei, F. S., & Salari, P. (2018). Challenges of confidentiality in clinical settings: compilation of an ethical guideline. Iranian Journal of Public Health, 47(6), 875. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6077627/

 

 

Ostaszkiewicz, J., Dickson-Swift, V., Hutchinson, A., & Wagg, A. (2020). A concept analysis of dignity-protective continence care for care-dependent older people in long-term care settings. BMC geriatrics, 20(1), 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-020-01673-x

 

 

Salmond, S. W., & Echevarria, M. (2017). Healthcare transformation and changing roles for nursing. Orthopaedic nursing, 36(1), 12. 10.1097/NOR.0000000000000308

 

 

Steele, L., Carr, R., Swaffer, K., Phillipson, L., & Fleming, R. (2020). Human rights and the confinement of people living with dementia in care homes. Health and Human Rights, 22(1), 7. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7348416/

 

 

Thomas, S. (2019). Aged care royal commission report condemns system as unsafe, reveals 'shocking tale of neglect.' ABC News. Retrieved on 26 July 2022, from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-31/aged-care-royal-commission-report-finds-unsafe-industry/11658328.