Acting against one’s moral convictions
Feelings of powerlessness are expressed in the narratives connected with an inability to protect the
patients’ dignity for organizational reasons. This concerned patients who were developing personality changes, becoming suspicious, accusatory and paranoid. Although such patients made accusa-
tions against fellow patients, relatives and RNs, they were still placed in a shared ward with
several beds. The RNs felt powerless and unable to protect the patients’ vulnerability, to prevent
them from being exposed to everyone on the ward since they could not make any changes in the
dialysis schedules: