End stage kidney Disease also referred as renal disease is the final stage of a chronic disease of the kidneys. It is a stage when the disease has reached a point for the kidneys to fail in functioning well enough to meet the daily life’s needs. This calls for treatment through dialysis procedures or through kidney transplant. Kidney transplant will involve transferring a kidney that is healthy from one person into a body of another person whose kidneys have little or are not functional. The first hours after transplant are very critical. Hemodynamic and respiratory instability may arise risking many complications like rejection of the graft (Jha & Tatapudi, 2010).
This calls for a lot of care and attention and as a registered nurse, one must consider the many roles he/she is in charge of to ensure the success in the recovery process of both the recipient and the donor. The role of an RN to the recipient will include management of medication, prevention of post operative infection, monitoring of fluid balances and the urine output and providing management care to the psychological issues that surround the whole process of transplant and recovery. The nurse administers the medication with the direction of the surgeons and the doctors and also ensures to record the progress accordingly (McGeown, 2010).
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To the transplant donor, the role of an RN is to administer medication for pain control, monitor the fever level and also manage and monitor the infection status by checking instances of fluid discharge or swelling in the incision region. He/ she also continues with emotional and social therapy of the donor and gives advice on the nutrition and diet the patient requires as well as the need for rest before the donor returns to his/her normal life activities (McGeown, 2010).
The ethical considerations involved in such a scenario will involve ensuring that the donor willingly makes a personal and informed decision to donate her kidney. The sister donating her kidney to her biological sister should not be coerced or obligated to do so by anybody or the family members and should not be pressured in any way. She should be aware of the potential risks involved in the procedure and careful planning done to reduce and minimize these potential risks (Torpey, 2010).
For this case, the sister should not be compensated moneywise. Despite it being illegal in most countries, it is unethical to commercialize kidney donation for transplant purposes according to the Ethical Council of The Transplantation Society. The sister will benefit psychologically by knowing that she saved her sister’s life and that she contributed to her health improvement. The satisfaction she will feel seeing her sister out of pain will be more rewarding than the compensation she may receive.
- Jha, V., & Tatapudi, R. R. (2010). End stage renal disease. Haryana: Elsevier.
- Torpey, N. (2010). Renal transplantation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- McGeown, M. G. (2010). Clinical Management of Renal Transplantation. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.