Thursday, September 23, 2010

Medical staff have apologized after injecting a patient with antipsychotic drugs against her will in a breach of her human rights

Jennifer Holmes
8:05 pm
9/23/10

Mrs. A went to the Aberdeen Royal infirmary for assistance with an illness. She did not want to take the medicine offered to her to help with her agitation. Instead she was unwillingly injected with an antipsychotic drug. The hospital claims that they took other actions first but nothing worked in calming the patient down so they looked at this option as a last resort. Mrs. A admits that she refused to take the antibiotics that the infirmary staff offered her, but this is not a good justification of injecting her with antipsychotic drugs against her will. After further investigation there is no evidence that proper steps were taken to gain permission from the patient to administer the drugs. Although the medical staff is supposed to be trained to make important decisions such as this but does not necessarily mean that they are good decisions especially when it goes against the patients will. The Ombudsman of the Aberdeen Royal infirmary acknowledges that the staff handled this case inappropriately by giving the injection to the patient.
I definitely feel this goes against ones humans rights. No matter what the circumstance that you should have a say when it comes to your health although the staff of the Aberdeen Royal infirmary had to make a quick decision, but there are several options that could have been taken instead of going against Mrs. A’s will of not wanting the injection. It appears that the patient is ok after this occurrence but this easily could have went the other direction such as if the patient was allergic to the drug that was used to calm her down.

http://news.stv.tv/scotland/198857-abereen-royal-infimrary-criticsed-for-breaching-human-rights/

5 comments:

Victoria Phillips said...

I agree that the patient should have the final say. It is a human right to be able to choose what goes in and onto your body. However, in special circumstances where a patient is nonresponsive, or is threatening the well-being of themselves or others, and all other options have failed, I believe the doctor should have the final say. We train doctors to do their jobs and sometimes we should just trust that they know what they are doing.

lizziejoy said...

I'm sure it can be tricky for doctors to know when they are crossing the line and breaching human rights, but in this case it definitely seems wrong.

keisha mcneil said...

I do agree that patient should have the right to say what goes in there bodies. We has humans put full trust in our doctors, and believe that they would make the right decision for us when needing to make the best decision. And some doctors do have to remember humans do have human rights.

Anonymous said...

This was definitely against her human rights. Just injecting anyone with a drug without their consent is outrageous. They should definitely get sued with all of the legal action against them.

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