✨ Addressing Moral Distress in Healthcare: A Growing Challenge ✨ Moral distress is an increasingly recognized problem around the world, especially in healthcare. It arises when individuals face ethically or morally difficult situations without the tools or support to navigate them effectively. This issue is particularly acute in low-resource settings, where healthcare workers often know the right course of action but are unable to pursue it due to a lack of resources. Over the past year, Heidi Matisonn has worked tirelessly with colleagues across the Faculty to create a space to address moral distress at the hospital that hosts the EthicsLab. This initiative has been instrumental in providing much-needed support to healthcare workers navigating these challenges. With the recent award of a UCT Faculty of Health Sciences Stimulus Grant, Heidi can now take this work to the next level, expanding the EthicsLab’s impact and its commitment to supporting those on the frontlines of care. Here’s to growing solutions that bridge ethics and practice, and to building a future where healthcare workers have the support they need to face moral and ethical challenges with confidence. #HealthcareEthics #MoralDistress #EthicsLab #Solidarity #LowResourceSettings
I'm thrilled to have been awarded a UCT Faculty of Health Sciences Research Stimulus Grant to work with Jackie Hoare and Steve Reid on developing an intervention to address moral suffering among healthcare professionals. The global phenomenon of moral distress in healthcare is getting increasing attention in South Africa and we have set up a Moral Distress Working Group and a Clinical Ethics Forum to try to deal with this problem, which, as Jackie puts it, is the primary occupational health hazard for medicine. We'd love to learn how others are tackling the issue...it's central to my work at the Ethics Lab_UCT!
