An advocate
An advocate is someone who is in charge of pleading the cause of another person. Commonly, an advocate is someone who puts on a case on behalf of another person who is not able to voice themselves. A patient advocate job is, however, done by the nurses. The role of the advocate is to ensure that the rights of a patient, both human and legal rights are adhered to (Olin, 2012). A patient advocate also helps in providing that they offer assistance in the ascertaining of the rights of the patient needs them. Some of the works of a patient advocate include offering more information to a patient who is deciding on a treatment plan (Fazlollah et al., 2016. Besides, an advocate is in charge of speaking out against policies and actions that cause danger to the patient in their wellbeing or that may cause conflict with the rights of the patient (Olin, 2012).
Among some of the advocacy cases, I have received involved a young boy who was arranged to be transferred to another hospital, but I felt it was not a good idea as it would cause further harm to the child. The family of the child had been involved in a flood disaster, and I had to speak on their behalf to ensure the transfer was not done. The needs of the patient were to receive treatment, and transferring them would have caused them more harm than good. The decision of transfer was a big issue as a result of finances, and therefore there was several managerial feedbacks experienced. The argument escalated to the assistant manager of the hospital since the patient would not be able to pay for the bills, and transferring them would cause them harm. A social worker was also present, and through thorough assessment, the patient was able to be kept in the hospital. The well-wishers contributed the bills through the assistance of the social worker — this one of the cases that I look back and feel proud of being a patient advocate.
References
Olin, J. (2012). What exactly is patient advocacy? Retrieved from: https://www.rncentral.com/blog/2012/what-exactly-is-patient-advocacy/
Shirmohammad D, Abbaszadeh, A, and Fazlollah A. (2016). Patient advocacy from the clinical nurses’ viewpoint: a qualitative study. Journal of medical ethics and the history of medicine. Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4958925/