Visitor restrictions in hospitals during infectious disease outbreaks: An ethical approach to policy development and requests for exemptions.

In this paper, we explore the ethics of restricting visitation to hospitals during an infectious disease outbreak. We aim to answer three questions: What are the features of an ethically justified hospital visitor restriction policy? Should policies include scope for case-by-case exemptions? How should decisions about exemptions be made? Based on a critical interpretive review of the existing ethical literature on visitor restrictions, we argue that an ethically justified hospital visitor restriction policy has the following features: proportionality, comprehensiveness, harm mitigation, exemptions for specific patient populations, visitation decisions made separately from a patient's treating clinicians, transparency, and consistency in application. We also argue that an ethical policy ought to include scope for case-by-case exemptions for individual patients.

Anticipated impacts of voluntary assisted dying legislation on nursing practice.

Background: The Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017 passed into law in Victoria, Australia, on the 29 November 2017. Internationally, nurses have been shown to be intimately involved in patient care throughout the voluntary assisted dying process. However, there is a paucity of research exploring Australian nurses' perspectives on voluntary assisted dying and, in particular, how Victorian nurses anticipate the implementation of this ethically controversial legislation will impact their professional lives.

Practical ethical challenges and moral distress among staff in a hospital COVID-19 screening service.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to unprecedented disruptions to established models of healthcare and healthcare delivery, creating a host of new ethical challenges for healthcare institutions, their leadership and their staff. Hospitals and other large organisations have an obligation to understand and recognise the downstream effects that highly unusual situations and professionally demanding policy may have on workers tasked with its implementation, in order to institute risk-mitigation strategies and provide additional support where required. In our experience, targeted ethics-based forums that provide a non-confrontational platform to discuss and explore the ethical dilemmas that may have arisen have been well received, and can also serve as useful and immediate feedback mechanisms to managers and leadership.

Supporting cancer care clinicians to 'hold' their patients during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic: a role for reflective ethics discussions.

The COVID-19 pandemic has placed an overwhelming burden on healthcare delivery globally. This paper examines how COVID-19 has affected cancer care clinicians' capacity to deliver cancer care in the Australian context. We use the lens of 'holding patients' (drawing from attachment theory, psychology and from Australian Indigenous knowledge) to conceptualise cancer clinicians' processes of care and therapeutic relationships with patients.

Support for and willingness to be involved in voluntary assisted dying: a multisite, cross-sectional survey study of clinicians in Victoria, Australia.

Background: In the Australian state of Victoria, specialist doctors are central to the operation of voluntary assisted dying (VAD). However, a broad range of clinicians may be involved in the care of patients requesting or using VAD.

Aims: To describe levels of support for and willingness to be involved in VAD and consider factors associated with clinician support for the VAD legislation and physicians' willingness to provide VAD in practice.

Junior doctors and conscientious objection to voluntary assisted dying: ethical complexity in practice.

In jurisdictions where voluntary assisted dying (VAD) is legal, eligibility assessments, prescription and administration of a VAD substance are commonly performed by senior doctors. Junior doctors' involvement is limited to a range of more peripheral aspects of patient care relating to VAD. In the Australian state of Victoria, where VAD has been legal since June 2019, all health professionals have a right under the legislation to conscientiously object to involvement in the VAD process, including provision of information about VAD.

Introducing Voluntary Assisted Dying: Staff Perspectives in an Acute Hospital.

Background: Voluntary assisted dying (VAD) was legalised in Victoria, Australia in June 2019. Physicians can now assist patients to end their lives by providing drugs for self-administration at their voluntary and competent request (or for physician administration in limited circumstances). This study investigates the opinions of clinicians on the implementation of the legislation in one Victorian hospital.

Balancing health worker well-being and duty to care: an ethical approach to staff safety in COVID-19 and beyond.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the risks that can be involved in healthcare work. In this paper, we explore the issue of staff safety in clinical work using the example of personal protective equipment (PPE) in the COVID-19 crisis. We articulate some of the specific ethical challenges around PPE currently being faced by front-line clinicians, and develop an approach to staff safety that involves balancing duty to care and personal well-being.

Medical ethics in the era of COVID-19: Now and the future.

Commentary

'This is uncharted water for all of us': challenges anticipated by hospital clinicians when voluntary assisted dying becomes legal in Victoria.

Objective The aim of this study was to identify the challenges anticipated by clinical staff in two Melbourne health services in relation to the legalisation of voluntary assisted dying in Victoria, Australia. Methods A qualitative approach was used to investigate perceived challenges for clinicians. Data were collected after the law had passed but before the start date for voluntary assisted dying in Victoria.

Restricting conversations about voluntary assisted dying: implications for clinical practice.

Objectives: On 19 June 2019, assisted dying became lawful in Victoria, the second most populous state in Australia. Section 8 of the is a legislative safeguard that is designed to ensure a patient's request for assistance to die is voluntary. This section prohibits health practitioners from initiating a conversation about assisted dying with the patient.

The active identification and management of chronic refractory breathlessness is a human right.

Chronic refractory breathlessness is defined as breathlessness at rest or on minimal exertion that will persist chronically despite optimal treatment of the underlying cause(s). At any time, 1% of the population report a modified Medical Research Council dyspnoea score of ≥ 3 chronically. Despite the prevalence, severity and chronicity of this symptom and an evidence base of affordable and safe interventions, chronic refractory breathlessness remains grossly undertreated.

Informed consent in palliative care clinical trials: challenging but possible.

Obtaining informed consent is a key protection that should be afforded universally to people using health services and the basis around which any participation in clinical trials is built. Randomized controlled effectiveness studies are necessary to answer key questions in hospice and palliative care, in order to help systematically improve the quality of care. In order to be properly generalizable, such trials need to have broad inclusion criteria to reflect the population most likely to be affected by the condition.

Off-label prescribing in palliative care - a cross-sectional national survey of palliative medicine doctors.

Background: Regulatory bodies including the European Medicines Agency register medications (formulation, route of administration) for specific clinical indications. Once registered, prescription is at clinicians' discretion. Off-label use is beyond the registered use.

Improving access to palliative care through an innovative quality improvement initiative: an opportunity for pay-for-performance.

Background: Improving access to palliative care is an important priority for hospitals as they strive to provide the best care and quality of life for their patients. Even in hospitals with longstanding palliative care programs, only a small proportion of patients with life-threatening illnesses receive palliative care services. Our two well-established palliative care programs in large academic hospitals used an innovative quality improvement initiative to broaden access to palliative care services, particularly to noncancer patients.

Ethical issues in palliative care.

Ethical problems in medicine are common, especially when caring for patients at the end of life. However, many of these issues are not adequately identified in the outpatient setting. Primary care providers are in a unique and privileged position to identify ethical issues, prevent future conflicts, and help patients make medical decisions that are consistent with their individual values and preferences.

A strategy to advance the evidence base in palliative medicine: formation of a palliative care research cooperative group.

Background: Palliative medicine has made rapid progress in establishing its scientific and clinical legitimacy, yet the evidence base to support clinical practice remains deficient in both the quantity and quality of published studies. Historically, the conduct of research in palliative care populations has been impeded by multiple barriers including health care system fragmentation, small number and size of potential sites for recruitment, vulnerability of the population, perceptions of inappropriateness, ethical concerns, and gate-keeping.

Methods: A group of experienced investigators with backgrounds in palliative care research convened to consider developing a research cooperative group as a mechanism for generating high-quality evidence on prioritized, clinically relevant topics in palliative care.

Developing the evidence base for palliative care: formation of the Palliative Care Research Cooperative and its first trial.

The field of palliative care and hospice has gained accreditation, with a growing cadre of specialists being trained, but there is a dearth of robust research evidence to guide clinical practice. After 2 years of planning, a group of senior investigators convened in January 2010 to explore the possibility of forming a research cooperative group dedicated to advancing the evidence base in palliative care and hospice. The meeting launched the Palliative Care Research Cooperative (PCRC) with an initial national/international membership, and a plan for developing policies and procedures.