Reply to this discussion- Anabel

Roles and Responsibilities of a Nurse.

Some patients may be unable to cater to their medical bills due to long hospital stays, humble backgrounds, or unexpectedly high medical bills. In such a situation the nurse in charge is likely to notice the reason, this could be the patient’s overstay at the hospital even after they have been discharged, the patient may as well make several phone calls asking for financial assistance from relatives and friends or the patient might ask if it is possible not to buy some of the drugs prescribed since they are expensive. In this case, the nurse will suspect the financial difficulty that the patient is facing and therefore do their research on the patient’s background information. Financial and social information is key in determining the patient’s situation. The nurse, therefore, calls the department in charge of social work in the hospital to inquire more about the patient’s information and the reason behind their difficulty in their clearance of the hospital bill. This information will determine by what process the patient will be assisted concerning their bill. For some patients, the hospital bill may just have exceeded their budget by some amount and for such a situation the patient is asked to pay what they have and then the rest of the bill is waived while for some patients they cannot completely pay their bill and may not have any medical cover. For such a situation the patient is waived fully.

            The roles of the nurse in a primary healthcare are several. According to this case, the nurse is responsible for the assessment and planning of a nursing care requirements. These requirements may include ensuring that all the vital equipment are available in the ward, the emergency tray is well set, all the necessary drugs are available and that the ward is in a good condition at all times. Another responsibility of a nurse manager is the supervision of junior staff. These are like the nurses' intern, student nurses as well as the casual staff in the ward. 

The nurse is also responsible for the patient’s welfare. This may include things like the patient’s financial status, the social background which will help in determining how to help the patient to cater to their bill. Health education is part of the nurse’s responsibility. It is the patients’ right to know their health status and how they can handle it and therefore the nurse has to educate

them on some of their health issues (Warshawsky et al., 2019).

            During the delivery of nursing responsibilities, the nurse is likely to face some challenges such as excessive workload at the hospital due to the shortage of nurses which also causes longer working hours and fatigue at the hospital (Khoran et al., 2018). Another challenge is workplace hazards such as needle pricks, exposure to bloodborne pathogens, and even cold and flu. Another challenge is workplace violence in the workplace. This is common in the psychiatric institutions. However, there are ways to prevent such challenges from occurring. The need to employ more nurses and equal allocation of duties will help in reducing the workload and working hours in the hospital. To reduce the workplace hazards the nurses should wear protective gear such as gloves and face masks to prevent infections. Balancing of gender in the workplace will help to reduce violence such as attacks by psychiatric patients. The nurse in charge ensures a well-balanced work schedule to allow the nurses to interact and hence create a good working environment in the hospital. A peaceful problem solving among the employees also leads to a good working team. Setting goals for patient care also helps create a good working environment.

The patient population that faces the most health disparities is the elderly, the infants and toddlers, and those patients with congenital disorders. The immune system of the elderly as well as those who are young is not strong enough to fight back infection and therefore they are likely to get sick easily. Those patients with histories of substance abuse are also at risk of health disparities due to organ damage and infection. (Bourgois et al., 2017).

References

Bourgois, P., Holmes, S. M., Sue, K., & Quesada, J. (2017). Structural vulnerability:

competency: findings from a national study. JONA: The Journal of Nursing Administration, 49(5), 249-255.

Khoran, M., Alhani, F., & Hajizadeh, E. (2018). Nurses' challenges in health

operationalizing the concept to address health disparities in clinical care. Academic medicine: journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, 92(3), 299.

Warshawsky, N., & Cramer, E. (2019). Describing nurse manager role preparation and assessment skills in Iran and another country: an integrative review. Journal of Nursing and Midwifery Sciences, 5(1), 38.