Whistle Blowing in Health Care Facilities

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Whistle Blowing in Health Care Facilities

• Atasha Tallie

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What are Misconduct Whistle-blowing?

• Misconduct Bad or dishonest management by
  persons supposed to act on anothers behalf.
  Activity that transgresses moral or civil law.
  (Websters Revised Unabriged Dictionary, MICRA
  Inc.)
• Whistle Blowing Exposure of fraud by an
  employee. The federal law that legitimated the
  concept of whistle-blowing is under the False
  Claims act (1863 revised 1986) The act also
  protects whistle-blowers from wrongful dismissal
  and other discriminatory treatment. (Columbia
  Electronic Encyclopedia. Columbia University
  Press.)

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Results and Consequences of Misconduct and
Whistle Blowing

• Misconduct in health care facilities is
  contributing to the exposure of otherwise healthy
  individuals to life long illness and disease that
  can sometimes result in death.
• Consequences of reporting misconduct are often
  severe and can result in the following
• Termination of employment
• Loss of comaradeship with co-workers and
  superiors
• Ostracization from their profession and sometimes
  the state they practice in.

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Examples and Concerns of Misconduct

• 40,000 people in Las Vegas exposed to Hepatitis
  C, B HIV at an Endoscopy Clinic
• Misconduct has no prefrence of race, creed, or
  age group. It is a general concern for all and
  must be treated as such.
• The well-being of the patient should not be
  undermined or ignored for fear of loosing your
  job.
• A Nationalized Union should be put in place for
  health care employees to assure them job security
  and protection from termination and other forms
  of mistreatment.

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Moral Views Ethical Duties

• I am bound not to rob or murder, betray or
  deceive but why am I bound to promote the
  general happiness? If my own happiness lies in
  something else, why may I not give that the
  preference? (John Stuart Mill)
• that each person's happiness is a good to that
  person, and the general happiness, therefore, a
  good to the aggregate of all persons (John
  Stuart Mill)
• Nurses strive to resolve such conflicts in ways
  that ensure patient safety, guard the patients
  best interest and preserve the professional
  integrity of the nurse (ANA Code of Ethics
  Provision 2.2)
• The code of ethics goes on to state that nurses
  should act on and address questionable and or
  impaired practice. In provisions 5.1 the duties
  of the nurse to maintain moral self-respect
  includes the duty to maintain competence. (ANA
  Code of Ethics Provisions 3.5 and 3.6)

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Conclusion

• Protection from termination or a more effective
  system for anonymous reporting should be put in
  place as a means of upholding the moral
  obligation to ones self and for the good of all.
  The ANA code of ethics and utilitarian John
  Stuart Mill both declare that happiness for all
  people is what we should be working towards.