Main Ethical Dilema in Health Care

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Recommended: What i have learnt from doing an essay on jehovah witnesses and the refusal of blood transfusions

Main Agents in Case
When evaluating any ethical case, it is crucial to examine all those involved and how their relationships with each other impact moral decisions made. In the case The Jehovah’s Witness and Blood Transfusion, all of the persons involved play an important role in determining what medical action should be taken based on ethical and moral deliberation. The first, and main, agent involved in the case is the patient herself, a 42 year old female who was recently baptized into the Jehovah’s Witness faith. Also highly involved, is the patent’s husband, who himself is not a member of Jehovah’s Witness, and is very unsure about his wife’s values in her faith and life decisions. In addition, there is a multidisciplinary team involved in the care of the patient, which consist of health care professionals such as physicians and nurses, and members of an ethics committee. The relationship between the patient and her husband is very important because typically, the health care team would look towards family members to be proxy decision makers when the patient is unable to be fully autonomous.
Main Ethical Dilemma
The main ethical dilemma in this case is for either the health care team to go against the patient’s religious beliefs and administer the blood transfusion to decrease the likelihood of her being permanently disabled, or for the health care team to comply with her religious beliefs in not administering a blood transfusion, causing the patient to remain permanently disabled. If the first decision is carried out, it may have negative effects in addition to the obvious positive ones of restoring her mobility and ability to speak. If the transfusion is provided, there poses a risk of the patient being rejected by othe...

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...A Code of Ethics. Retrieved from http://policybase.cma.ca/dbtw-wpd/PolicyPDF/PD04-06.pdf Day, R. A., Paul, P., Williams, B., Smeltzer, S. C., & Bare, B. (2010). Brunner & Suddarth’s textbook of Canadian medical-surgical nursing (2nd ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Janicemarie K. Vinicky, Matin L. Smith, Russell B. Connors, Jr., and Walter E Kozachuk, MD. “The Jehovah’s Witness and Blood: New Perspectives on an Old Dilemma,” The Journal of Clinical Ethics 1 (Spring 1991): 298-307.
Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania (2014). Jehovah’s Witness, common misconceptions. Retrieved from http://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/jehovahs-witnesses-why-no-blood-transfusions/ Yeo, M., Moorhouse, A., Khan, P., and Rodney, P. (Eds.) (2010). Concepts and cases in nursing ethics (3rd Edition). Peterborough Ontario: Broadview Press. Print.

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