The Socio-Political And Cultural Context of Nursing - Essay Example

?HEA 634 The Socio-Political And Cultural Context of Nursing Table of Contents Introduction 3 Social, Political and Cultural Context of Health and Inequalities across a Range of Groups and Contexts 5 Discriminatory Practices Impact upon the Therapeutic Relationship and Human Rights 8 Delivery of Anti-Discrimination Practice 9 Analysis of the Statement 10 Conclusion 12 References 13 Introduction Sociology plays a vital role in nursing as it sheds light on a string of aspects of the health and illness. It has been found that since the last 20 years, the sociological theory has become a valuable clinical tool in the diagnosis of the wide range of illnesses in long term conditions (Handsley & Stocks, 2009). It has been noticed that the patterns and the inquiry processes in the Jacobs-Kramer and Chinn’s model are quite adequate in describing the relationship of nurse-patient. There are various patterns of knowing in case of nursing practices that address the “who”, the “how” and the “what”. However, it has been understood that the pattern of the socio-political knowing tries to address the “wherein”. This pattern picks up views of the nurse from the thoughtful nurse-patient relation and tries to position it at the broader context where the nursing takes place. The sociopolitical knowing may be perceived as being understood at two levels. The first level is the sociopolitical context of the persons while the second one is the sociopolitical context of nursing as a profession (Barker, 2009). The term cultural competence can be defined as the capability to understand and respond in an effective manner to the needs such as cultural and linguistic that is brought to the health care experience by the health care providers and the organisations (Seright, 2007). Sex can be termed as the various biological and physiological characteristics of male and female whereas the gender can be defined as the socially constructed behaviours, relationships, norms that are considered as appropriate by the society for men and women. The gender inequalities are considered to be a serious issue. The issue is not about the socially constructed differences between men and women. However, it is about that this difference provides rise to discrimination and inequalities. Since both men and women are biologically different, therefore differences in health risk, needs and conditions tend to arise. Social, Political and Cultural Context of Health and Inequalities across a Range of Groups and Contexts It has been found in the history of social work that there has been growing concerns regarding the social inequalities and also upon the focus to diminish systems of oppression. In case of British context, the approaches of anti-racist to social work appeared during the year 1980. This was in response to the concerns over discrimination, inequalities and injustice in providing the service and delivery along with the racism within the profession itself (Graham & Schiele, 2010). Both the terms oppression and discrimination are grounded on the belief of superiority of one group over the other along with the consequent rights of greater power and opportunity in the society. Oppression can be termed as political, economic and cultural actions and the behaviours that may harm the individuals through exploitation. In nursing there are various patterns of knowing. However, two more patterns of knowing have also been found and it would be beneficial to include these within the reflection. One of the patterns of knowing is unknowing. Unknowing signifies awareness that the nurse doesn’t understand the patient when they first meet. When the nurse recognises this unknowing then she tends to remain attentive to the clients’ perspectives. There has been a debate in the nursing literature regarding the place that sociology occupies in nursing. According to the view of Cooke, nurses tend to have negative attitudes. He further claims that nursing is all about individuals. Therefore, it is the duty of the nurses to better understand those individuals in the framework of their society and pathology. It is important for the nurses to increase their socio-political knowing in order to understand when and how to react in relation to the framework of nursing (Heath, 1998). Even though there are innumerable cultures across the disciplines, including the nursing, the concept that appears as constant across the theories has been the concept of context. Throughout the professional lives, set of culturally generic competencies that can be applied across the cultural groups can be used and developed. The culture specific competencies such as deeper understanding of the underpinning societal as well as appreciation of how cultural identity mediates health help to acquire the culture specific competencies that is particular to specific cultural groups. Since the cultural competence is developing at a continuous pace, this generally implies that the health care workers work at distinct level of cultural competence. It is to be noted that the cultural competence is required both legally and morally by the nurses. If diversity can be valued at the health care organisation then it enhances the delivery as well as the effectiveness and efficiency of the health care for all the people irrespective of the cultural group they belong to, i.e. either major or minor. The two factors namely the cultural and the structural factors influence the quality of the health and the nursing care. It is worth saying that failure of the nurse to consider these two factors may lead to failure in providing the individualised care to all the clients. It has been evident that the racism has an adverse impact upon the health and there is racism in the health care as well. It is because of ignorance, ethnocentricity and racial prejudice in receiving societies that deprive the people of their human rights and also prevent them from receiving proper help and support. It can be said that the people who have language problem, an absence of cultural sensitivity and absolute hostility may not be able to receive effective health care whenever they are in problems (Papadopoulos, 2006). In privileged socio-economic group, high job strain along with insecure employment, showed self-governing, consistent and strong association with both mental and physical health. The rate of adverse job condition is quite high particularly the insecure employment. It is to be noted that the influence of these two work conditions has been a significant focus for the future public health research (D’Souza & Et. Al., 2003). It is worth noticing that the wide gap in the health outcomes between the rich people and the poor can be found in children. The social inequalities in health that arise are of great concern to various interested parties. The most important component of the UK health policy is to reduce the inequalities in health (Waterston & Et. Al., 2003). Discriminatory Practices Impact upon the Therapeutic Relationship and Human Rights The discriminatory practice has an adverse impact upon the therapeutic relationship and human rights. The discrimination among the groups can be considered as being significant and multidimensional that can cause much resentment and violent political protest. There are number of policies, measurements and theories that have been focusing upon the inequalities among the individuals. However, it has been found that less amount of work has been conducted on inequalities among the groups. The inequality that takes place within the group is vital from a number of viewpoints such as the well-being and the health of the member may be adversely affected. It may even impede the efforts to reduce the poverty and hamper the full realisation of economic potential (Stewart, 2007). It has been argued that several BME groups may experience high rates of poverty than Whitish British in terms of income, benefits use, lacking basic necessities and area deprivation. There are various factors that affect the ethnic health such as the long run impact upon migration, poor delivery and take-up health care, racism and discrimination, difference in the cultures and life styles and various biological susceptibility. Human rights tend to create a protective zone around the persons and enable them the opportunity to carry their valued projects further without anyone’s interferences. Human rights can be considered as an ethical idea or a way of reaching to ethnicity, gender, class and conduct in a search for the protection and benefits of the people all around the world. Therefore, this right tends to protect from any kind of discrimination that arises in the society. Delivery of Anti-Discrimination Practice If the diversity is valued in health care, then it helps to enhance the delivery and effectiveness of the health care facilities for all people. It can further be said that, in order to empower the service users with whom work is done, it is important to identify and understand the ways in which oppression and face-discrimination take place. It is also important to get familiarised with diverse cultures and traditions with a view to respect the cultural differences. In order to challenge the inequality understanding, the workings of power is essential. If ethics, rights, dignity and community identity can be considered, then it can help to disclose the true benefits and possibility of diversity initiatives. These considerations help to move the managing diversity debate from a liberal politics of tolerance and try to create spaces where cultural diversity can be discovered on an equal basis. Differences have been a factor that has been ignored in the past due to which conflicts stemmed up. However, the individual and the group diversity should be taken into consideration in order to ensure that the needs and the requirements of everyone are understood and responded as soon as possible in the health care sector as well. A commitment to the equality along with recognition of the diversity denotes that differences can be made equal. There are established laws and acts that can prevent from any kind of discrimination such as Sex Determination Act 1975, Race Relation Act 1976, Equality Act 2006 and Disability Discrimination Act 1995. These acts protect the gender i.e. women, men and people in relation to gender reassignment, race/ethnicity, i.e. anyone who is related to ethnic origin, colour or culture and nationality, sexuality i.e. gay, lesbians, bisexual and heterosexual people, the religion/belief i.e. anyone in relation to the religious or philosophical belief and age. Communication also has a role to play in promoting the anti-discrimination practice in health care. Therefore, it is vital to understand what the others want to convey. However, it requires constant effort and is also quite difficult to achieve. The parties need to actively listen to others feelings and needs in order to be heard and understood. For this they need to become an example of how they themselves wish to be treated. The managers need to be effective in interpersonal communication while emphasising on the clarity and the frequency of the messages, their capability to listen and lead in a collaborative manner (Bambacas, 2008). The conflicts also tend to arise when discrimination occurs. It becomes important to determine the extent to which the issue has arisen with regard to the specific misunderstandings in order to arrive at the appropriate solution measures. Reframing of the participants viewpoint is extremely important in order to arrive at Win-Win situation. In addition to this, it is also essential to examine and understand the opposing viewpoints and better comprehend the groups underlying needs. Even if the agreement cannot be attained, the opinion of the third party becomes significant (Jamieson, 2011). Analysis of the Statement “Practice which does not take account of oppression and discrimination cannot be seen as good practice, no matter how high its standards may be in other aspects” seems to be quite true as stated by Neil Thompson. It has been noted that the traditional approaches to the human services doesn’t take much account of the issues that is related to the discrimination as well as oppression. Since 1980s the issues that is related to sexism, racism have made an impact upon the social policy agenda in Britain. It is imperative to use the theory in order to develop the anti-discriminatory practice. Actions cannot be described to be good precisely if it oppresses or discriminates against the people with whom work is done. Along with the problem of racism, the discrimination that is experienced by the women is considered to be the significant aspect of human services. It has been noted in the above paragraphs that there are four areas of discrimination. However, in addition to these issues relating to the sexual identity and nationality, region and language also need to be paid due attention. Socio-economic and cultural context are also significant factors that relate to oppression at a more general level and specifically relate to human service practice. Any from of discrimination against disabled people has to addressed and prevented in a social context in order to protect their rights. An approach based on human service work has to be sensitive towards issues related to oppression and discrimination. Otherwise, the approach runs a risk of creating more harm than benefit to the people to whom the benefits are intended. A ‘common sense’ based approach cannot at all scenarios work in case of socio-cultural context. A practice that is good therefore requires to be informed with the theoretical understandings (Thompson, 2000). Conclusion The social workers such as health care providers and nurses are in the business of facilitating the change. The change doesn’t take place among the individuals and its environment, which oppresses the growth of the individual. They face various challenges such as inequality and social injustice among others. Therefore, the social workers should work in an anti-oppressive manner with individuals, communities, groups and society in order to manage the discrimination. The social workers need to participate in self reflection and must be aware of the impact of inequalities and injustices. In order to reduce the impact of discrimination, communication is extremely important. The Human Rights Act also tries to reduce the impact of discrimination policies. References Barker, A. M., 2009. Advanced Practice Nursing: Essential Knowledge for the Profession. Jones & Barlett Learning. Bambacas, M., 2008. "Interpersonal Communication Skills That Enhance Organisational Commitment", Journal of Communication Management, Vol. 12 Iss: 1, pp.51 – 72. D’Souza, R. M. & Et. Al., 2003. “Work And Health In A Contemporary Society: Demands, Control, and Insecurity”, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Vol: 57, Iss: 11. 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