Moral Dilemmas of Nursing in End-of-Life Care in Hungary: a personal perspective

Abstract

The authors’ aim is to bring to the attention of readers the inadequacies of care for people in Hungary who are terminally ill. They believe that both objective and subjective factors cause these inadequacies. Most of these factors arise from moral dilemmas that could be eased or even solved if ethics education had a much more prominent place in the nursing curriculum. Even if nurses would not become automatically better persons morally, a much wider knowledge of medical/nursing ethics could significantly improve nursing care both before and at the end of life. Although the article is also critical of the nursing care provided, it is not its purpose to make any generalizations. The study utilized selected passages from essays written by 76 practicing nurses on their personal experience of ethical dilemmas in their work environment, and a questionnaire administered to 250 students (registered nurses and health care students) studying for a college degree. This article is written by two authors who have formed an unusal alliance: a registered nurse with 29 years’ experience of bedside nursing, but who is currently a teacher of nursing ethics at a local health college, and a lawyer turned bioethicist.