What is public health ethics for the geriatric community?

Abstract

Background: A growing ageing community puts additional demands on the public health system. This will contribute to ethical consequences for the health care sector. A public health ethics framework can contribute towards addressing the ethical challenges faced by the geriatric community.Aim: This article intends to contribute to a public health ethics framework for the geriatric community from a South African perspective.Setting: Twenty-two participants from six geriatric institutions, two each in the three provinces, participated in the research. The provinces are the Free State, Northern Cape and North West.Methods: Fifteen statements were rated using a five-point Likert scale questionnaire. The statements were grouped into three indexes, namely what is ethics, what is public health ethics and what is public health ethics for the geriatric community?Results: Ethical behaviour is observable not only from person to person but also through systems, processes and practices. The need is to understand how to apply ethical principles to the working environment. A public health ethic can be understood from applied, professional and social ethics.Conclusion: Public health ethics is the application of health care principles through a professional ethic resulting in care and relationship-building. The core of what public health is should be the basis to identify a public health ethic where the focus is on the community and improvement of the quality of health and well-being of the community.Contribution: No evidence of a public health ethics framework for the geriatric community could be identified in South Africa.

Conocimiento, nobleza y ética en el cuidado como servicio humano

“…En situaciones y circunstancias diversas, las enfermeras con años de labor ininterrumpida, son altamente conscientes que deben estar marcando el paso en el ser y acciones para los otros profesionales más jóvenes que, como se sabe lleva consigo paradas y avances en días y años de intenso trabajo, estudio e investigación pero con la mirada siempre fija en la meta de cuidar y abogar por la dignidad personal, actos sustentados con gran firmeza por la filosofía, teorías y diagnósticos que fundamentan la enfermería y practicados por las enfermeras de todo el mundo en contextos tranquilos o llenos de adversidades como la pandemia pasada, con el único propósito de promocionar la salud, la vida, sin exclusiones u omisiones en el cuidado, ya que las mismas enfermeras saben que la experticias de sus manos guarda relación con el bien practicado, con convicción moral para enfatizar y reorientar el pensamiento de la salud como una gran preocupación rigurosamente humana 3,4 .…”

“…Las convicciones morales permiten crecer en humanidad con la expresión de virtudes arraigadas al ofrecer el cuidado como son la compasión, la misericordia y la sensibilidad con el ser sufriente o el adolescente desubicado, solo y sin metas fijas o con el prematuro indefenso que requiere calor maternal. Por esta razón, la humanidad se va construyendo hasta constituirse en un capital moral caracterizado por el buen carácter y el arraigo de virtudes, obtenido en el cuidado integral continuo , no por momentos o en ciertos días, es siempre cada vez que estamos frente al enfermo o a la persona que nos necesita y se produce en los profesionales de enfermería más interés por los problemas, mayor discernimiento por las necesidades 3 , optando por dejar de lado los propios intereses, es decir profesionales que buscan ser excelentes y rechazan la desunión, se reflexiona entonces sobre el desarraigo de las imperfecciones, de ahí que es necesario reconocer que a veces se necesita más unidad precedida de trato amable entre colegas y evitar a toda costa desuniones con trato indiferente, ejercicio profesional rutinario, poca empatía, aspectos que deben ser apartados del ejercicio profesional y de la propia vida. Más bien, optar por la unidad, la superación conjunta, el liderazgo compartido, con la finalidad de obtener las metas programadas, apoyando con autenticidad lo que otros profesionales de enfermería hicieron para alcanzar cada nivel en el que ahora estamos, y aún lograr otros mejores.…”

“…In diverse situations and circumstances, nurses with years of uninterrupted work, are highly conscious that they must be setting the pace in being and actions for other younger professionals who, as is known, carry with them stops and advances in days and years of intense work, study and research but with their eyes always fixed on the goal of caring and advocating for personal dignity, acts supported with great firmness by philosophy, theories and diagnoses that underpin nursing and practiced by nurses around the world in calm contexts or full of adversities such as the past pandemic, with the sole purpose of promoting health, life, without exclusions or omissions in care, since the nurses themselves know that the expertise of their hands is related to the good practiced, with moral conviction to emphasize and reorient the thinking of health as a great concern rigorously human 3,4 .…”

“…Moral convictions allow us to grow in humanity with the expression of virtues rooted in offering care, such as compassion, mercy and sensitivity to the suffering being or the misplaced adolescent, alone and without fixed goals, or to the defenseless premature infant who requires maternal warmth. For this reason, humanity is built up until it becomes a moral capital characterized by good character and the rooting of virtues, obtained in continuous integral care, not at times or on certain days, but every time we are in front of the sick or the person who needs us, and nursing professionals become more interested in the problems, more discerning of the needs 3 , This is why it is necessary to recognize that sometimes more unity is needed, preceded by friendly treatment among colleagues, and to avoid at all costs disunity with indifferent treatment, routine professional practice, little empathy, aspects that should be removed from professional practice and from life itself. Rather, opt for unity, joint improvement, shared leadership, with the purpose of obtaining the programmed goals, supporting with authenticity what other nursing professionals did to reach each level where we are now, and even achieve better ones.…”