Community Health Nursing - Essay Example

Community health nursing in older adults and hospice patients Community health nursing is a type of welfare which is very important and vital to the community in whole and to the many weaker populations in the community, among which are disabled people, chronically ill people, the elderly, etc. I chose to focus on the population of the older adults and the hospice patients, which is, in my view, one of the most important populations needing assistance. In this population, as expected, there are many health problems due to the old age or the fact that they are in a hospice, indicating that they suffer from some illness which requires around the clock care. One of the more significant problems for this population, and perhaps the most important one, is dementia, which is one of the chronic diseases which have become the primary cause of death in most parts of the world (1, p.1). The significance of it can also be witnessed by the number of people who have it. There is a staggering number of 24 millions people with dementia today, and this number will drastically escalate to over 81 million by the year 2040 (1, p.1). This illustrates the dire need for more health care and access to it for this population. This also happens to be the first objective of the healthy people 2010 initiative, which is a program that aims at helping individuals of all ages increase life expectancy and improve their quality of life (2). 1 " A systematic approach to health improvement", from the web site http://www.healthypeople.gov/Document/html/uih/uih_2.htm#obj 2 Alzheimers disease international Annual report 2005-2006, from web site http://www.alz.co.uk/adi/pdf/annrep06.pdf In order to assess the community health needs of the elderly and hospice population, several sources of data can be used. Firstly, surveillance at institutions where the population is staying could provide live information and a deep understanding of the situation. Secondly, the U.S Department of Health and Human Services can provide statistics. Thirdly, the media can provide a general assessment of the situation. Fourthly, doctors and health specialists can provide theoretical and practical information, as well as a different point of view. I would personally also use another method of data collection, which is interviewing the staff of the hospices and elderly nurse homes, and the relatives of the people staying there. Generally speaking, they will be the key informants, because they can provide a wide picture of the situation and offer an in-depth understanding of the health needs of this population. In order to improve this populations health needs, there needs to be an intervention. The needed type of intervention is the enhancement of the access to health care facilities. There needs to be a policy which will directly deal with the health problems of the weaker populations and better their situation by improving access to comprehensive high quality health care centers, as stated in the first objective of the healthy people 2010 program. This will be done by building hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and other health care centers in places that have little or no access to these services, as well as by adding more of these services to places who already have access to them. It is important to mention that this policy needs to be anchored by law and enforced by the government. Only if we pass laws which are aimed at upgrading the health care for elderly and hospice patients, will we be able to truly improve their health conditions. And of course, there needs to be some authority that will be responsible for enforcing these laws and making sure that the upgrading of the health system for the weaker population does occur. The intervention target, to improve access to health care services, is a secondary level prevention. This is due to the fact that having more services of health will increase the probability for diseases to be diagnosed and treated in time. It is a systems level of intervention because the health services are the ones that intervene and make the situation better. The public health intervention used to implement this intervention is the policy development & enforcement one, seeing as how the intervention is carried out by creating a policy to help the elderly and hospice patients population, and making sure it happens by legislation and enforcing the laws legislated. One can only assume that the method mentioned above for implementing the intervention will be successful. But in order for that to happen, there need to be financial resources available. In order to build the many more health care facilities that are needed, it is necessary to have a lot of funding. This can be generated in numerous ways. First and foremost, the government should allocate enough money for this. Secondly, there could be a special tax collected by the people, in order to supplement to the governments budget. Thirdly, there could be a fundraising meant to both raise awareness to the many difficulties of this population and raising money for it. There will, of course, need to be steps that will ensure these resources are available. The first of which is legislation. There needs to be a law that clearly states the government must reserve a certain amount of money in order to take care of the weaker populations. Another step is to form a team of experts, consisting of doctors, social workers, statisticians and economists who will together decide how many facilities to construct, where to do so, and how much money is needed for this. Also, in order for this implementation of the intervention to occur, there will probably need to be advocacy for it. It seems to me that the best way to do so is by approaching peoples feelings and explaining to them that these populations of older people and people who are hospice patients cannot usually fend for themselves, that they require the assistance of others, otherwise- they wont even be able to function daily, much less lead a normal life like anyone else. I would convey my opinion that it is immoral not to do something to help these poor, defenseless people. Id also add that we all, each and every one of us, have a parent or grandparent or uncle or any other relative who is old and requires these services, and furthermore, we will all one day require these services and so will our children, their children and so on. This means that investing some money and helping the older adults and the hospice patients by funding the health care infrastructure will not only help them today, but also help us and our future generations in the years to come. This should get the public to invest and contribute money for fundraising and agree to pay further taxes for this cause. As for convincing the government, I would say that it is their utmost important duty to not only care for the young and healthy population, but also to the older and less healthy population, who need the governments assistance and support more than anyone else. In case the government refuses to allocate enough funding on its part, I would use the media to win over the publics opinion and by doing so, putting more strain and pressure on the government to approve this funding. The intervention proposed is inclusive and general, and does not concern only one or several cultural or ethnic subsets of the population of elderly and hospice patients. It includes those from every single group. Therefore, it will not have any implications on one subset or another. It will help them all as a whole. The role of the community health nursing, after the intervention is implemented, is to support the grown and upgraded health care services, and by doing so supporting the population for which these services were created. This will be, of course, on a daily basis. All the resources, people and infrastructure of the community health nursing will be combined in order to achieve the maximal possible outcome for this population, resulting in its enjoyment of the benefits that were added and are invested to better take care and look after them. To conclude, the population of older adults and hospice patients, being one that can sustain itself alone, requires the help of the community. Due to the rapidly growing number of old people with chronic diseases, and these diseases being the number one mortality rate, there is no doubt that the services of health care services for this population needs to be greatly improved and upgrades. This can be done by adding more facilities of health care in places which have access to it, and also, and more importantly, in places which dont have it. This will improve this populations access to health facilities, and allow them to get treatment or a diagnosis of their disease better and faster. Also, there will be more hospices and other types of establishments which house and take care of the old and the sick, such as retirement homes. This is actually the fulfillment of the first objective in the healthy people 2010. In order to make all this happen, there needs to be a shift in the countrys policy, which needs to support these moves towards assisting the old and sick population. The policy should be incorporated in the constitution as amendments. Once legislated, the laws concerning the matter will be enforced by the government, perhaps by the U.S Department of Health and Human Services, or some other office that will be raised to do so. Also, in order to bring this important task to fruition, there is a need for a lot of funding. This will be procured by the government setting aside a part of the budget for it, collecting special taxes for it, and maybe even a fundraising. The first two methods of acquiring money for this purpose may also be legislated. once the money is at hand, a special committee of doctors, social workers, statisticians and economists will decide on all the practical aspects of the construction of the health care services, such as where to build them, how much to build, how to supply the population with optimal services, etc. the result of all this hard work and this incredibly long and complex process will definitely be worth it, since there will be an entirely new infrastructure of health care services of all kinds available for the elderly population and the hospice patients, both in places where there previously wasnt access to them, and in ones which had access to them, but now theres much more of it. This will drastically change the health conditions for the community and will provide a way to care for the weaker population for years to come. References A systematic approach to health improvement. Retrieved November 17, 2006. from http://www.healthypeople.gov/Document/html/uih/uih_2.htm#obj late 2005, Alzheimers disease international. Annual report 2005-2006. Retrieved November 17, 2006 from http://www.alz.co.uk/adi/pdf/annrep06.pdf Read More