PATIENT ADVOCACY: VIBRANT STORIES OF ALEX WUBBELS AND STELLA OLUYEDE
Nurses are often the greatest at patient advocacy; they fight for the interests of their patients. The activities of two foreign nurses, Stella Oluyede and Alex Wubbel, OAUTHC Nigerian Nurse and UTAH American Nurse, illustrate one of the most important responsibilities of nursing ethics in ensuring patient safety and quality care.
Their actions generated public support and also public lashes, of these two nurses; Stella Oluyede and Alex Wubbel. Nurses are well-positioned to educate and advocate for their patients. They’ve been rated the most trustworthy profession for 18 years in a row, patients rely on nurses to act in their best interests, support their autonomy, keep them safe and educate them about their conditions.
Apparently, the public has been misled with falsehoods, fallacies, manipulations, and unbridled distortion of recent nursing actions especially by otherwise respected Medical Doctors and Movie Industries to advance their dictatorial ego and ignorance respectively, while patient advocacy is essential, not everyone can know what it looks like when nurses practice them.
Nursing TV finds it challenging to see the deception and egregious fallacies some quarters occasionally, readily, and without hesitation propagate, as well, registered nurses who cannot stomach the falsehoods have been astounded by the lengths to which these fallacious juggernauts have gone to distort events.
Here are two recent ways over the decade, nurses have advocated for their patients:
THE PATIENT ADVOCACY STORY OF ALEX WUBBELS, UTAH AMERICAN NURSE
Alex Wubbels, an intensive care nurse at the University of Utah Hospital, was detained in July 2017 for resisting a Salt Lake City police officer’s unlawful blood sample extraction from a patient who was unconscious. After a video of her difficult arrest went viral, she was pushed into the national limelight, hailed as a hero, and helped amend the Utah blood draw rule as well as launch a nationwide awareness campaign regarding workplace violence in the healthcare industry.
THE PATIENT ADVOCACY STORY OF STELLA OLUYEDE, OAUTHC NIGERIAN NURSE
Stella Oluyede, a senior nurse at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Teaching Hospitals Complex, the only way to avoid physical confrontation after she reminded the Doctors politely thrice was to lockdown the exit door of the ward after a Doctor dishonorably refused to complete a procedure that her senior doctors have left her to do.
The young doctor refused to segregate and discard the hazardous and injurious waste generated and negligently abandoned by the doctors at the patient’s bedside which will cause harm to the patient and other health professionals if not properly discarded.
The World Health Organization standards state that whoever generates waste, disposes of it, and disposal of biohazardous material is a serious matter with all-round responsibility and doctors have a key role in this effort; not leaving biological/hazardous material about creating risks to other staff and patients.
Medical Profession has rules of practice and procedure which must be fully complied with at all times for the safety of lives of all the stakeholders within the area of Medical exercise this must be done in the interest of public safety Section 1(2) of the Medical and Dental Practitioners Act (MPPA) provides that;
Doctors must be accountable to the public and patients in discharge of Medical practice and procedure. The MPPA recommends punishment for any doctor that breach such duty of care.
public safety Section 1(2) of the Medical and Dental Practitioners Act (MPPA)
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While those who have been touched by nurses’ kind and caring hands celebrate them as heroes, do we treat nurses the same way we do our heroes? Do they receive the respect they deserve, and are they compensated appropriately? Do we present them to our children as role models? Do they have job autonomy? When it comes to the situation of nurses throughout the world, there are a thousand questions but no answers.
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