58585Aga Khan University, Kenya.
Nurs Ethics. 2021 Sep;28(6):1073-1080. doi: 10.1177/0969733021996038. Epub 2021 Mar 15.
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed vulnerabilities in inadequately prioritized healthcare systems in low- and middle-income countries such as Kenya. In this prolonged pandemic, nurses and midwives working at the frontline face multiple ethical problems, including their obligation to care for their patients and the risk for infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. Despite the frequency of emergencies in Africa, there is a paucity of literature on ethical issues during epidemics. Furthermore, nursing regulatory bodies in African countries such as Kenya have primarily adopted a Western code of ethics that may not reflect the realities of the healthcare systems and cultural context in which nurses and midwives care for patients. In this article, we discuss the tension between nurses' and midwives' duty of care and resource allocation in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. There is an urgent need to clarify nurses' and midwives' rights and responsibilities, especially in the current political setting, limited resources, and ambiguous professional codes of ethics that guide their practice.
新冠疫情暴露了肯尼亚等中低收入国家医疗体系中优先级安排不当的脆弱性。在这场旷日持久的大流行中，奋战在一线的护士和助产士面临着多种伦理问题，包括他们照顾病人的义务和感染严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒 2 的风险。尽管非洲经常发生紧急情况，但关于大流行期间的伦理问题的文献却很少。此外，肯尼亚等非洲国家的护理监管机构主要采用了西方的道德规范，这些规范可能无法反映护士和助产士照顾病人的医疗体系和文化背景的现实。在本文中，我们讨论了在新冠疫情背景下护士和助产士的护理责任和资源分配之间的紧张关系。迫切需要澄清护士和助产士的权利和责任，特别是在当前的政治环境、有限的资源和指导其实践的职业道德规范不明确的情况下。
