Patients Rights, Law and Ethics for Nurses (Second edition)

Since around 2000 many changes have taken place regarding law and ethics relating to children; this could result in dilemmas arising where nurses are not up to date or are unfamiliar with providing care for these particular clients. As today’s rapidly changing healthcare market continues along its path it is leading to a generation of new issues for doctors, nurses, lawyers, judges and legislators. In this setting the rights of a child are especially challenging in relation to consent to treatment. All the rights stated in the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child are applicable in health care; however, application of the participation rights is perhaps the most challenging. Health and social care professionals for a long time have been of the opinion that they hold power, authority and inuence in their roles with children. It is very easy Introduction: overview 49 When does human life begin? 50 Childhood and the law 55 Parents and parental responsibility: majority age 57 Consent and the child 59 Advocacy 62 Safeguarding the vulnerable child 64 Information on child abuse – disclosure 68 Conclusion 69 References 70 within child health services to substitute the word ‘parent’ for ‘patient’; therefore, the rights of children are often overlooked in favour of the rights of the parents (Brook, 2005). Rights – what are they and who has them? Alderson (2008) describes rights as ‘equal entitlements for all members of the human family to respect their worth and dignity’. e United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) reects the philosophy that children too are equal, having the same inherent value as grown-ups. However, in order to have a right the person must be able to understand and comprehend that right as being theirs. Where does this leave the fetus, the preverbal child, the unconscious child, the child with learning di- culties or mental health issues? e relationship between law and ethical principles is always open to debate and examination, but where children are involved these principles present some of the most dicult, intractable and fundamental moral questions. Lee and Morgan (2004), in their book on birthrights, argued that one of the characteristics of the twentieth century was ‘more clearly than any preceding century … we have assumed the power to cause death on a hitherto undreamt of scale’. So where does this statement leave the healthcare worker?