NURSING LEGAL LAWS

Nursing Legal Laws

Nursing Legal Laws

Introduction

In this paper I will be discussing duty of care, non-delegable duty of care, causation, damages, vicarious liability, and damages. I will be discussing them all briefly as they are all large topics. All of these topics fall under the heading of negligence. Negligence is a torte, or a civil wrong. Negligence is the failure to not take reasonable care and failure to avoid injury or loss to another individual. In a court of law there are four steps to proving negligence. The plaintiff must prove:

That there is a duty to take care in the circumstances at hand (duty of care).

What the standards are that a person should meet in these circumstances (standard of care).

That both the inaction and behaviour of the defendant did not meet the legal standard of care (breach of duty).

That the plaintiff suffered injury or loss that the reasonable person in the circumstances could foresee and also could have reasonably avoided (damage) (Raymond 2002).

Case Study

Nurse Slighta Hand, RN charted the medications were given as prescribed. Her note at 11:08 p.m. read, 'Vomiting; unable to retain medicine. Respiration increased (54), temperature 101.4°F (rectal); wheezing with increased difficulty breathing.' No further notes were made regarding Cindy's condition on the emergency department record by the nurse, except to state that at 12:04 am, 'child released from emergency department.'

Thirty minutes after discharge from the emergency department, Cindy Black was brought back to the hospital. This time her vital signs were absent, her skin was warm without mottling, and the pupils of the eye were dilated but reacted slowly to light. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation was instituted without success, and Cindy Black was pronounced dead.

In every nursing malpractice case the defendant nurse's conduct is measured against that of a reasonably prudent nurse under the same or similar circumstances. Departure from the professional standards of nursing care for the first admission to the emergency department included the following deviations:

Failure to assess Cindy Black comprehensively upon discharge

Failure to assess the patient systematically for the duration of the emergency department visit

Duty of Care

If the actions of a person are not made with watchfulness, attention, caution, and prudence, their actions are considered negligent. Consequently, the resulting damages may be claimed as negligence in a lawsuit. For a plaintiff (the injured person or patient) to establish that negligence has occurred against the defendant, the plaintiff needs to show the defendant owed a duty of care to the plaintiff. Duty of Care is determined by Common Law which is case law developed through the courts and Legislation- e.g.; Road Laws (Jordan Oshel 1999).

The duty of care has been breached in the scenarios in the following areas,

a patient being left in a restraint

a nurse being negligent in the counting of surgical sponges

there had been no consent form signed in regards to the elderly man from the nursing home being operated on

the registrar forgetting to write up a pre medication order

a second year student giving a IM narcotic

Consent not being obtained from a child's ...