Elaine Chase Faces Four Misconduct Charges Nurse example essay topic

Elaine Chase faces four misconduct charges nurse who injected a terminally ill teenager with morphine twice in five minutes has insisted she was acting on instructions and in his best interests. The 16-year old boy, who was suffering from cancer, died a couple of hours after Elaine chase gave him the pain-killing drug. On Friday, the 51-year old fro Benfleet, Essex, insisted the boy's comfort was her priority. She denied four misconduct charges at the Nursing and Midwifery council.

Following instructions The boy dies in 1998 after Ms Chase had visited his house after receiving a telephone call from the boy's father who said his son was deeply distressed. She gave him his intravenous dose of morphine at 1330 BST - earlier than usual. It was one of three doses he had each day at eight hour intervals. Ms Chase told the tribunal the drugs seemed to have little effect and after contacting the boy's GP, Dr Jenny Thorpe, for instructions, another dose was administered about five minutes later". I was following instructions by the GP for the second dose of morphine and that was given verbally on the phone", she said. Death was connected " If she was happy for that to happen, I did not see why I should not give the second dose".

Colleagues of the nurse have also told the tribunal they rejected suggestions that her actions were connected to the boy's death. The charges against Ms Chase include failing to act in a collaborative manner with colleagues as well as injecting the boy twice within five minutes. The charges leveled at the nurse all relate to her time at the South Essex Mental Health and Community Care Services NHS Trust in Southend. The hearing was adjourned until Tuesday.

Nurse guilty of 'failings'A nurse once suspected of killing dying children was yesterday found guilty of separate professional failings. Four years ago police probed Elaine Chase, 52, over the alleged mercy killings but never brought criminal charges. However, in a separate case she was later suspended after giving a dying cancer patient aged 16 two morphine jabs. Ms Chase, of Benfleet, Essex, was also said to have failed to properly document treatment of a handicapped teenager.

Both later died. The Nursing and Midwifery Council cleared her on both counts. But it found she broke rules by giving the cancer patient the first jab without asking a doctor. It also found she was uncooperative with colleagues.

The incidents took place while she worked for a South Essex NHS Trust. The hearing ran out of time while considering whether they amounted to misconduct. It was adjourned to a later date. The act done by nurse Elaine Chase was, let us consider for now, a mistake. This is in the basis of the statements and evaluations given from the "facts" portion of this paper.

In the determination of Ms Elaine's considering of the ethical options she faced on her dilemma, let us use the divine mandate approach, one of the four ethical approaches in... (blah-blah-blah). Her dichotomic situation was the conflict between following the doctor's order, which was to administer a second morphine shot, stat, and listening to nurse's initiative. "To administer or not to administer?" was the question that probably stormed in the head of nurse Elaine. On one end of the rope, she would be neglecting her duty if she didn't follow the instruction given to her by the patient's physician, "who knows best", considering ceteris paribus.

However, she is risking the life of the terminally ill patient if she was to administer an immediate shot of morphine, on the other end. In the divine mandate approach, a person believes in an ultimate and supreme being. Examples of such are Jesus Christ, Allah, and Buddha to name a few. Our lives are modeled from the life of the supreme being that we put our faith and belief into. And it is guided by the rules that our Creator has set before us. In this case, the life of Lord Jesus Christ is used as the epitome of morality and His Ten Commandments as the guidelines of ethical decisions.

In the situation that Ms Elaine Chase faced, the commandment "Thou shall not kill" was the one she was supposed to consider. As a nurse ensuring the integrity and life of the patient and following a physician's order are both equally included in doing the job and to ignore both responsibilities would put the nurse in breach of his / her duties. But when faced with a dilemma like the one Ms Elaine was in, the lesser value should be sacrificed for the more important value. One of two other responsibilities of a nurse is knowing when administration of a certain drug is inappropriate and incorrect. The second is knowing the effects of the medication if it was administered inappropriately, like morphine in which case the effect maybe lethal. In weighing values, the more important value, which is in this case, a fundamental value, life, should be put atop the much, much lesser value that is the fulfillment of duties.

Basing from the evaluation done, the nurse should not give the patient a second shot of morphine within a five minute period, knowing that you are putting the life of an individual at risk. By comparing the actual act done by nurse Elaine Chase and the appropriate task as evaluated, we can generalize that Elaine Chase made an unethical decision leading to an act that was not only a mistake but was also wrong.