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Ethics Nova Scotia Health

Ethics Needs Assessment Survey 2025

Are you or your team grappling with ethical issues in your practice or work?
Would you or your team benefit from resources and supports to address ethical issues?

Share your ideas with the Ethics Nova Scotia Health team through our Ethics Needs Assessment Survey!

Your participation will help shape future ethics education and resources.

Check out our poster for more details 

About

Ethics Nova Scotia Health is a service and a resource for persons working through complex situations or decisions that arise in healthcare practice, administration, or policy writing, and that involve competing and deeply held values. Ethics support is available to all employees, physicians, learners, volunteers, patients, and families at Nova Scotia Health.

Types of ethics support

Ethics Nova Scotia Health offers three types of support:

Request ethics support

Clinical Ethics Support

Would you benefit from an ethics consultation related to a specific patient's care, either past or present?

Ethics Nova Scotia Health provides support to those who are working through complex situations or decisions. We can help you to identify and articulate the values and principles that are at play and in tension, and, if relevant, facilitate the exploration of alternatives.

Ethics consultants do not have decision-making authority. As needed or relevant, they may help decision-makers and stakeholders identify possible options and explore trade-offs involved. Final responsibility for making a healthcare and treatment decision lies with the patient, substitute decision-maker(s) (as appropriate), and the most responsible healthcare provider.

Examples of clinical ethics situations:

  • You are not sure whether a patient or a substitute decision-maker is making an informed decision.
  • Stakeholders are uncertain or disagree about a patient’s best interests.
  • You feel that your personal or professional values are being challenged.

If you are not sure whether to request an ethics consultation, please ask. Every situation is unique. If your request may be better addressed by another service, we will try to direct you.

Organizational Ethics and Policy Support

Organizational ethics relates to broader, systems-level issues, often affecting a wide range of patients or other groups.

It also includes overall direction for programs, zones, and the entire health authority, where an ethics perspective can contribute to analysis and making strategic choices. 

Examples of organizational ethics matters/issues:

  • Fair allocation of limited, organization-wide cancer care resources.
  • Optimization of equitable access to medical assistance in dying (MAiD) services in urban and rural areas of the organization.
  • Application of an ‘ethics lens’ to financial/business decisions within Nova Scotia Health.
  • Establishment of criteria for potential provision of privately funded treatments/interventions within Nova Scotia Health healthcare settings.

Nova Scotia Health policies direct:

  • How employees, physicians, learners, volunteers and patients/families interact.
  • How patients are cared for.
  • How, and to whom, limited health resources are delivered.

Applying an ethics perspective can be useful in the development and review of policies within health organizations.

Organizational Ethics and Policy Support provides formal ethics reviews of policy drafts. Learn more about how ethics may help policy developers:

You might reach out to Ethics Nova Scotia Health for organizational ethics or for policy support when: 

  • You have a concern related to fairness or equity in distribution of healthcare resources.
  • You are wondering what a fair process should look like as part of health services planning.
  • You are starting work on a high-stakes policy, for example:
    • A policy that affects equity-seeking populations.
    • A policy that involves curtailing the liberty of patients, or other kinds of values-based tensions.
  • You are sending out a policy draft for review with relevant partners.

Ethics Education

Do you need help preparing and/or delivering an education session?

Ethics Education Support responds to requests for ethics education for staff members and healthcare providers. We can:

  • Develop presentations and facilitate discussions on health ethics matters specific to your team or program.
  • Provide presentations on common health ethics topics, including:
    • Informed consent
    • End of life decision-making
    • Moral distress and moral residue
    • Professional boundaries
  • Develop ethics education resources, including tools and guides for healthcare providers, and patients and families.

To learn more about our Ethics Education resources, visit Ethics Resources.

Examples of questions that arise in the delivery of health care where ethics education support could be requested:

Ethics Nova Scotia Health's Structure

The Ethics Collaborations Team, situated within the Department of Bioethics in Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine, provides ethics leadership and support to all components and operations of Ethics Nova Scotia Health.

Nova Scotia Health Ethics Network (NSHEN) provides primary ethics education support to Ethics Nova Scotia Health through:

  • Developing and delivering targeted educational sessions and workshops.
  • Developing ethics education materials and tools for use by healthcare providers, administrators, leaders and those who participate in ethics support activities.