Question

Holy Days

Sol Meyers, an Orthodox Jew, brought his wife to the hospital in active labor at 8 p.m. She gave birth at midnight and the nurses suggested Mr. Meyers accompany her to the postpartum unit before returning home to rest. He thanked them, but explained that he could not drive home because it was the Sabbath. The nurses understood and arranged for him to stay in his wife’s room.

In the morning, you are the nurse caring for Mr. Meyers’ wife and newborn baby. When you are doing your morning assessment, Mr. Meyers asks you for breakfast. You politely explain the food provided in the hospital is for the patients only, and he would need to go to the cafeteria for breakfast. Being on Orthodox Jew and being the Sabbath, Mr. Meyers is forbidden to ride in the elevator or handle money. You offer to get him food, but he has no money with him. You explain the situation to your charge nurse and she reluctantly suggests you order extra food for Mr. Meyers and his wife to share. At lunch, the same situation occurred. This time, the charge nurse refuses to order extra food for Mr. Meyers and suggests he call for ride to take him home. When this was suggested to Mr. Meyers, he replied use of the phone on the Sabbath was forbidden and none of his friends or relatives would answer because they were also Orthodox Jews.

Case studies adapted from Galanti, G. (1997). Caring for patients from different cultures: case studies from american hospitals (2^nd ed.). University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia, PA.

Discussion Questions:

Consider the role of the charge nurse and the bedside nurse in this situation. Would you have done anything differently in this situation? Are there any other interventions you could have performed to help in this situation? Please post your comments to the discussion board.

Please Post your comments to the discussion board and respond to at least one of your fellow classmate's posts.

Answer 1

Humanity must be always our first priority. We are humans first and later comes any thing else. It is Humanity which makes us a "Human".

In case of the both charge nurse and bed nurse, either I would have spent money from my pocket to arrange food for the Jews orelse I would have personally or by means of someone else taken Mr.Meyer to his home to get money so that he doesn't stay hungry.