The Importance of Ethics Committees in Nursing Home Care

The importance of ethics committees in nursing homes consists in their ability to balance reasonable treatment and guidance with the respect and dignity that comes as a right to all residents. The basic approach of ethics committees then is to maintain a healthy relationship between caregivers (at all levels) and residents so that the former are permitted to do their job and maintain a reasonable quality of life for all involved while not treating their charges as objects of a routine.

Function

• The basic idea of an ethics committee in a nursing home is to protect the rights of residents. The fact that these residents are impaired at various levels of severity means that caregivers have a power over them that does not exist in the broader society. Hence, rights must be respected in what is a delicate situation of control and coercive powers that can become highly problematic to residents and the guarding of their quality of life.

Membership

• Membership of the ethics committee, if it can do its job properly, is to include not merely care giving staff, but community members, members of the clergy, lucid residents, neighbors and family members. With this, the knowledge of how and when to file a grievance must be made known and clear to all residents as a matter of right. An ethics committee cannot function to its full potential if residents do not know how to use the system, or the committee merely rubber stamps institutional decisions. Checks and balances in the membership are central to its proper functioning.

Quality of Life

• Securing the quality of life of residents is the first priority of applied ethics in this field. Quality of life here can be defined as the sum total of reasonable care within the framework of the rights of patients/residents. In other words, by respecting the rights of patients in the course of care, a world is created where the quality of life of residents is placed at its maximum achievable height. The rights of residents cannot be separated from their quality of life in any regard.

Rights of Residents

• The basic rights of nursing home residents include, but are not limited to: full disclosure of information about treatment, freedom of information, basic independence in dress and recreation, the right to refuse medication or certain kinds of treatment, and the right to a full array of social services within the facility that remain easy to access. If these minimal rights are respected, then a nursing home can guarantee a certain minimal quality of life that is reasonable and achievable.

Federal Assistance

• It should be noted that section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act holds clearly that any nursing home resident has the right to partake in any and all activities of the home and be treated with respect in the course of these events if otherwise qualified to take part. The programs in question must be receiving federal funds for this specific law to take affect, but since many institutions do take federal money, this can be the basis of ethics procedures under the law.