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Consider the connection to nursing values and professional ethics to your identified advocacy priority.
Post a response detailing the following:
Describe the nursing values and professional ethics related to the advocacy priority identified for the selected population.
Why do our nursing values and ethics demand it be on the agenda?
Compare the role of law, ethics, or politics on the population identified in your Week 2 Advocacy Area
The advocacy priority of increasing access to affordable insulin for low-income diabetic patients is deeply rooted in core nursing values and ethical principles:
Social Justice: This value demands that nurses act to eliminate health disparities and ensure that all people have fair opportunities for health (American Nurses Association [ANA], 2021). The inability of a patient to afford life-saving medication based on economic status is a profound social injustice.
Beneficence: This is the ethical duty to do good and act in the best interest of the patient. Ensuring affordable insulin is the most direct way to promote the health and survival of diabetic patients.
Non-maleficence: This principle means doing no harm. Allowing policies that result in patients rationing or foregoing insulin due to cost directly causes harm (e.g., ketoacidosis, organ failure). Advocacy is required to mitigate this harm.
Fidelity: This principle relates to the nurse's faithfulness and commitment to the patient. Advocating for their economic health needs is an act of fidelity to the patient's holistic well-being.
Nursing ethics are not passive; they are action-oriented. The ANA Code of Ethics for Nurses (Provision 8) specifically states that the nurse collaborates with other health professionals and the public to protect human rights, promote health diplomacy, and reduce health disparities (ANA, 2015). When a systemic barrier (like high insulin costs) directly causes suffering and premature death in a vulnerable population, the ethical obligation shifts from individual patient care (giving a dose of insulin) to systemic advocacy (changing the policy that determines the cost of the dose). Our professional mandate requires us to address the upstream factors that make individual care ineffective.