Workplace Ethical Dilemma

I have often thought of myself as a good person. My parents raised me to respect my elders, be kind to animals and children, and to say always please. These are good qualities for a person to have, but it is important to know why people have these qualities. Showing common courtesy to someone may make an impact in that person's day, but in the workplace common courtesy, especially unwarranted can lead to trouble. Every workplace has a code of conduct and ethics followed by all their employees. It is in the best interest of the employee to become familiar with his or her own workplace code of conduct and ethics. The difference between code of conduct and code of ethics is that a code of conduct is physical, and a code of ethics is mental. Code of conduct refers to one's actions and code of ethics is related more to one's morality. For example: You work at a company, and you become enraged with a coworker and hit him or her. Your conduct is your action-the hitting. If you believed the way you react when you are upset is wrong that would be your ethics. If you were to apply this to a business setting the ethics would be in the company believing that this behavior is not acceptable.

In 2009, I was employed by a hospital as a housekeeper. My title was Support Associate. The duties of the job included cleaning and maintain the unit that was assigned to me for the day. One day as I was performing my duties, I came across a patient who was complaining of chest pains and asked me to get his nurse. I stopped what I was doing and went to the nurse's station and asked for the nurse who was in charge of the patient in room "A". I found the nurse who was in charge of the patient in room "A" and told her that her patient was complaining of chest pains and was asking for her. The nurse shrugged me off and said to me the patient has been complaining all morning, and he will be fine. I left the nurse's station and went back to the patient's room and told him his nurse will be there shortly. I continued to clean my unit and within 10 minutes there was a code red alert on my unit. I saw all the doctors and nurses running toward the room were the man was complaining of chest pains. I believed the patient needed assistance. I wanted to help, but there was nothing I could do.

As the doctors and nurses were working on the patient, I could hear the machinery go off and I heard it when the patient flat lined and died. I saw the family of the patient walking down the hall and I went to meet them and tell him or she happened. Later that day as I was getting ready to go home for the day, my supervisor calls me into her office. The director of the hospital, the head of human resources, and my union rep is in the office, and they all question me about the incident and what did I tell the family. I told them everything I could remember. I was told I was in violation of the HIPAA act and Patient Confidentiality. I was reprimanded for my actions, and suspended from work for two weeks without pay. I thought I was helping by letting the patient's family knows the events leading to his or her family member's death. I realize how my actions, can be a breach of a patient's privacy rule, and it could have led to lawsuits against the hospital.

According to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996