Background: Conflicts arise when healthcare providers disagree about providing optimal care to critically ill patients where resources and services are constrained.Aim: This study investigated ethical conflicts experienced by intensive care unit (ICU) healthcare professionals working in a regional hospital, Limpopo province of South Africa.
Setting:The study was conducted at a rural public regional hospital in Vhembe district, Limpopo Province. Communities served by the hospital are poor and medically uninsured.Methods: This study adopted a qualitative, exploratory and descriptive design. The target population comprised Health care professionals working in an ICU of the regional hospital. Purposive sample was selected and 17 unstructured interviews were conducted. Tesch's method of data analysis was used. Ethical considerations were adhered to.Results: Patients' care needs were compromised because of the unavailability of beds and high-technology equipment, such as well-functioning ventilators. Doctors were not having the necessary skills required in the ICU as the majority were on community service/internship and nurses acted beyond their scope of practice because of a lack of adequately trained intensive care specialists. Infection control practices were overlooked and 'use once' pieces of equipment were reused. Conflicting values between nurses, patients and family of patients exist.
Conclusion:Lack of resources compromises provision of optimal and intensive care. Patients were prone to infections and their safety might have been compromised.
There is a consensus amongst folklorists that the dissemination of folklore is entrenched in the tradition of orality. The idea that folklores are ‘‘‘passed down’ from generation to generation through ‘word of mouth’ or ‘tales’ confines the folklore tradition to the mono-modal communication platform of the ‘spoken word.’’’ While the authors acknowledge the richness and expediency of this delivery mode, this article advocates for the use of physicality and performance as supplementary embodiments of folklore. It argues that since the aspects of the body in time and space are already phenomenologically- integrated into folklore through the realms of words and imagination, it is necessary to fully synthesise performativity into the folklore tradition both visually and theatrically through dance and movement.
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