Criminal patient ! November 23, 2014

The last blog that I’ll be writing is about a patient that I had to care for during stage. The reason why he was admitted to the hospital was because of his bipolar disorder. He had a mental problem. I had developed a good therapeutic relationship with him in the morning as I would with all my other patient. Then around 11am, two cops came in the floor and they were looking for my patient. The nurse in charge of my patient can and told me that my patient had to go to the court because he had an aggressive behavior and he was violent with his wife.  I was really shocked when I heard this because to me the patient looked totally normal and cooperative. Then they took him and he had to go to the special unit for prisoner.

I never thought I would have to take care of a criminal patient. Then after the experience with my teacher. I talked with her and she also didn't know that he was a criminal. I then realized that if I would know that he was a criminal at the beginning of the shift, I may would have felt a moral distress and maybe I would have behaved and treated this patient differently. The teacher made me realized that from this experience that is the way I have to treat every of my patients. They need to be treated equally and fairly as every other patient. He was admitted to the hospital because he had a mental illness not because he did something wrong. Therefore I treated him because of his bipolar disorder not because he was being violent. But his aggressive behavior could also have being linked to his mental illness, I don’t know. It is my duty to provide good and safe care to my patient, judging them is not correct. Now, all the patient I have, I interact with them without judging or treating them differently (Respecting the principle of justice). I say to myself that they are all patient that needs help and care. It is a good thing that this happened to me because now I have the virtue and moral courage with criminal patient (I treat them as if they are normal patient). They are our patient and we need to advocate for them because maybe they weren't aware of what they did, they have a mental illness, etc. But I may still have hard time with some extreme cases such as killing children because I didn't had to deal with it yet so I don’t know if I will be able to deal with it or not (I will still try even if it goes against my beliefs and values).

Qais Khedri

Nursing Ethics