INTRODUCTION
• Nursing is the profession rendering services to patients and society
• it is a physical aspect of healthcare and nursing department forms one
of the largest departments of the hospital
• To avoid legal suits and to protect client, nurses should also have a
good understanding of legal issues ethical and professional rules and
nursing regulatory mechanism.
DEFINITION
• Nursing law is defined as that body of status and executive orders
regulations, rules and legal precedents which have their objective,
promotion and protection of individual and community by nursing
service.
TYPES OF LAW
• Public law:- concerned with relationship between state and citizens.
1. Constitutional law :- judgemental law of the country
2. Administrative law :- defines the power of administrative agencies
3. Criminal law :- indicates violation of duty
• Civil law/ private law:- body of law that deals with relationship among person
and protection of a person’s right that is violation of one’s right by another person.
1. Contract law :- agreement between parties that the law will enforce
2. Tort law :- wrongful act committed against a person / his/her property.
LEGAL ASPECTS IN NURSING
1. Importance of law in nursing –
• Law acts as a framework for nursing action
• Helps to maintain standards of nursing practice.
• It differentiate nurses responsibilities from those of other health
professional.
• Law helps to protect the nurses from liability.
2. Legal liabilities in nursing
• Liability is a form of hindrance that causes individuals at a disadvantage.
• It is a stage of accountability or responsibility for doing something.
1. Duty :- nurses responsibility is to give care in an acceptable manner.
2. Beach of duty:- failed to provide care in an acceptable manner.
3. Injury or damages:- harm due to nursing action or care.
4. Proximate cause:- is an element of liability to prove that failure to
meet the standard of care which cause the harm to the patient.
3. Legal issues in nursing
• It is a dispute or illegal question that need to deal in the court for
deciding as per civil a criminal law.
• Tort :- Some kind of wrongful act that causes harm to someone else or
it is a wrong committed against a person or persons property.
• Classification of torts:- intentional tort
• unintentional tort.
INTENTIONAL TORT
1. Battery :- For eg. starting an IV line without asking consent of the person if emergency it is not considered
battery
2. Assault:- For eg. threatening to take medicines to a patient if you are she doesn’t complive it treatment.
3. False imprisonment:- restraining a patient that is unlawful to personal liberty.
4. Fraud will full purposeful miss interpretation of self or an act that may cause harm to a person or property.
5. Defamation of character fails communication resulting injury to a patients reputation by means of written
statement or oral statement.
6. invasion of privacy means trespass upon his or her body or personality.
• Types:-
• Organizational privacy
• Information privacy
• Workplace privacy.
UNINTENTIONAL TORT
1. Negligence:- omission of an act that a reasonable and prudent
person would perform in a similar situation
2. Mal practice:- For eg. injury to patient while giving care
• failure to maintain safety during operation.
