It is hard to separate the concepts of justice and care. The values of care and justice are the centerpoint of nursing in the Christian perspective. The roots of nursing trace itself to Christian women who were selflessness enough to devote their time and energy in taking care of the sick. Care and justice are inherent values we have seen in Jesus – caring for the sick and oppressed while rebuking those who were not in the right track. Our God is a God of love and mercy. We are called not only to care but to act with justice to those we provide care and are affected by it.
To find substance in our moral experiences, we need the concepts of care and justice (Doornbos, Groenhout, & Hotz, 2005). The same authors further wrote that: “We need both concepts to have an accurate sense of who God is and of how to structure our own lives, and if we loose sight of either we end up with distortions in our thinking (p.97).
In view of the current nursing shortage and the changing landscape of the health care, nurses providing care at the bedside are experiencing ‘moral distress’. We feel that we are not able to take care of our patients adequately because of the nursing shortage (increasing nurse to patient ratio). “The situation cannot be solved by working harder or more efficiently, so the nurses feel they have no solution” (Doornbos, Groenhout, & Hotz, 2005, p.95). As Christian nurses, we cannot separate our personal values from our work values, that is why we have to dig deeper into our value system and define it.
Let us go forth and continue to serve…
