Introduction
Nurses are expected to respect professional nursing ethics when undertaking their duties. One of the ethical behavior expected of nurses is being accountable for their hospital resources. Nurses have some resources under their control and they should effectively manage them. There are incidences where nurses have acted unethically (Finkler & McHugh, 2008). One such incidence is the diversion of narcotics drugs. This paper explores narcotics diversion by nurses, as an ethical issue and looks into how hospital management can control such a practice.
Diverting narcotics
Nurses use narcotics for medical purposes. There are some diseases, which are treated with narcotics. When a nurse is caring for a patient, they have full control of medicines and thus they may divert them to other areas for personal benefit. The obvious reason for such behaviors is a lack of ethics (Cleverly & Cameron, 2007).
Narcotics are diverted and sold to drug abusers or a nurse may have another health facility where the diverted narcotics are sold. This may be a personal facility or another facility that buys such diverted goods. To get narcotics out of a hospital, the nurse may work in collaboration with the store manager who permits some narcotics out of the store without proper documentation. Another way of stealing narcotics is by ordering more supplies from stores than the demand is. This will leave some unused medicines that are diverted. Another way is by not giving patients the correct dosage and diverting the remainder. The excess drug gets their way out of a hospital and the nurse concerned sells them for personal gain. Diversion may be having a chain of players.
Control of diversion of narcotics
The best way in controlling narcotics diversion is to ensure that nurses uphold high standards of behavior and respect their code of ethics. This can start from recruitment where people of high integrity are recruited for nursing jobs. After recruiting, the hospital should ensure that it has some training course that enhances a good code of ethics in the hospital (Fred, 2008).
Maintaining effective internal control in a hospital will ensure that nurses and other players in such a deal are held accountable for their actions. Right from the storeman, there should be measures put to ensure that the hospital resources are well managed. Documentation and online store management will assist a hospital to control the outflow of narcotics (Nugent & Vitale, 2004).
To the extremes, at the outlet, a hospital should have sniffer dogs, which will be sniffing every staff coming out of the hospital. When a certain nurse has been detected carrying some narcotics out of the hospital without proper permission, management should handle such a case like a criminal case. For example, they may decide to sack such a nurse or have legal proceedings undertaken over the issue. The registration license of such a nurse should be withheld.
Nurses should be banned from operating private health centers when still underemployment. Some narcotics end up in operating nurse’s health centers where they are dispensed to patients receiving treatments from such centers. Any violation of such rules should be punished harshly (Huber, 2006).
Conclusion
Nurses are expected to uphold a professional nursing code of ethics when performing their duties. The nursing code of ethics requires nurses to be accountable for hospital resources. Diversion of narcotics has been an ethical issue among the nursing community. To control the tread, hospital management should maintain a highly effective internal control that holds every employee accountable for his or her actions.
References
Cleverly, W. O., & Cameron, A. E. (2007). Essentials of health care finance. Sudbury: Jones and Bartlett.
Finkler, A. and McHugh, M. (2008). Budgeting concepts for nurse managers. Philadelphia: Elsevier Health Sciences.
Fred, D. (2008). Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases. New Jersey: Pearson Education.
Huber, D. (2006). Leadership and nursing care management. Pennsylvania: Saunders Elsevier.
Nugent, P. M., & Vitale, B. A. (2004). Test success for beginning nursing students.Philadelphia: F. A. Davis.