Nursing homework help| Nursing homework help
Moral distress occurs when healthcare providers’ moral beliefs and obligations clash with patient wishes or institutional restrictions. This happens when a provider believes that another source is preventing them from taking the right approach to care for their patient. My personal experience with moral distress was as an assistant at an outpatient clinic. Patients were often elderly, with limited resources and could not afford the care and medications they needed.
These patients were unfortunately denied vital treatments due to administrative and bureaucratic delays. The fact that there was nothing I could do in those situations caused me great frustration and moral distress; I felt helpless at times but also immensely guilty because I knew it was ultimately my responsibility as the patient’s advocate to ensure they received adequate care. It was heartbreaking seeing how many people had access denied them simply based on their socio-economic status – something which should never be used as a factor in determining health outcomes.