Political, Legal and Ethical Health Promotion Considerations

Political, legal and ethical health promotion considerations There are various political considerations involved in health promotion for the patient. The main issue that is seen at the facility that I am located at is the allocation of resources for wound care treatment. It is extremely difficult to provide patients with the supplies needed due to the recent cut backs over the past years in reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaid. Since these cutbacks have taken effect, it is very difficult to obtain the supplies that are needed to treat the patients with. In fact, at DSMC, the entire hospital must function with only two woundvac machines. Even worse, at LPMC they do not have any woundvac machines to use on their wound care patients, when they are in need of one they must go elsewhere. In the past, the hospital had more of these machines to provide to the patients, but after these cutbacks went into effect the hospital also had to cut back as well. This places the wound care team in quite a predicament. For instance, if they have more than two patients in the hospital who are in need of a woundvac machine, then they must decide which patients take priority and get to use the machine. This places the nurses in an ethical dilemma, of having to decide which one of the patients deserves the treatment and should get use of the machine. As a nurse, we are supposed to provide equality of care to all patients, regardless of there ability to pay. Why should one patient be offered the machine while the other not. With all the cutbacks that this facility is facing, it is difficult for nurses to provide the best quality of care. Nurses are being stretched very thin across the board and are being forced to provide care to an ever increasing amount of patients. The wound care center has had to increase the number of patients seen by each nurse due to these recent cutbacks throughout the facility. Now, they are faced with the challenge of how to provide

References: American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.