Introduction Nurses play a vital role in healthcare settings by ensuring that patients, their families, and the entire community receive skilled, responsive, and ethical care that upholds wellbeing, equity, dignity, and quality for all recipients. The provision of ethical care entails promoting the recovery of patients, assuaging their suffering, and helping them deal with longstanding disorders to avoid further injury. Other components of ethical care include patient education and advocacy initiatives. Therefore, nursing care is an intellectually stimulating process that necessitates skills and knowledge. However, it is delivered in a multifaceted setting that is full of ethical encounters and predicaments. Additionally, the current focus on value-based care compels nurses to provide quality care to all people without discrimination. This paper provides a critical analysis of the role of nursing in fostering an equitable healthcare system. The key ethical and legal issues, as well as barriers associated with the process, are highlighted. The potential solutions to address these barriers are also discussed in this paper. Ethical and Legal Issues in Mental Health Care Working in a mental health setting provides nurses with dilemmas concerning regard for independence as opposed to patriarchal behavior. The nursing code of ethics is useful in directing the actions of nurses when faced with such dilemmas. Therefore, it is important to be familiar with ethical conventions and the prerequisites of moral decision making. The five main ethical codes are the principles of beneficence and no malevolence, autonomy, justice, fidelity, and veracity (Winland-Brown, Lachman, & Swanson, 2015). The principle of beneficence requires nurses to act in ways that benefit all involved parties, whereas autonomy entails showing consideration to the rights of other people when making choices. The tenet of justice encompasses the equal distribution of resources while fidelity expects nurses to maintain loyalty and dedication to their patients. The principle of veracity entails honesty in all communications. Mental health care is also guided by a set of laws that ensure the rights of mental health patients are upheld. Mentally-ill patients have the same civil rights and freedoms as other people. As a result, the confinement of patients in mental hospitals should be done according to the due process in civil commitment. Involuntary confinement is against the law and can be challenged by patients. In this regard, the least constricting alternative doctrine decrees that modest measures be taken to realize specific objectives. Admission to mental hospitals should be voluntary, which can only happen when required by patients or their custodians. Hence, patients have the right to demand their release. However, compulsory commitment can take place if patients pose threats to themselves or other people. Obligatory confinement can also occur if patients cannot sustain their basic needs due to the prevailing mental disorders. Emergency obligatory admission usually involves confinement for a specified period to forestall deleterious behavior. All mental patients have the right to receive medical and psychiatric care that is given to all patients admitted to a public health facility. Under this rule, patients can refuse treatment at any time. This freedom has sparked controversies among he