Equality and Diversity within Health Care - Essay Example

Equality and Diversity within Health Care Equality and Diversity within Healthcare Equality in health involves ensuring that receive fair treatment in terms service delivery. Equality tends to eliminate discriminations based on gender, age, religion, and disability in ensuring that the health care sector meets customer satisfaction thresholds. From a different perspective, diversity is the acceptance and valuing of individual differences. To promote equality and diversity in the health care sector, the UK government should enforce strict laws and penalties like the Equality Act 2011. The act should protect the customers to the health care sector from discrimination that can compromise customer trust. The Act obligates health providers to abide by equality and diversity in delivering their services to the customers. The public should then undergo an informative training to enlighten them on the Acts statutes regarding equality and diversity. The training session should inform the customer of the right steps and procedures to follow to report incidences of discrimination. The health care sectors should include a monitoring department the monitors the health care providers regarding equality and diversity in service delivery. The close monitoring ensures transparency in the operations of the healthcare. Transparency begins with hiring health practitioners on a fair platform based on the set professionalism standards. The integrity in professionalism will ensure that the health care providers offer services on a fair basis without any form of discrimination. The transparency in operations will aid monitoring and ascertaining of customer satisfaction in terms of service delivery. The government should enforce laws binding health care sectors to hire staff cutting across all races, gender, and qualified ages. The move ensures the inclusion of all the vulnerable groups thereby eliminating potential chances of discrimination. There should also be regular mandatory sessions of mass lectures on the importance of equality and diversity in the health care sector. The program helps each person within the health care system to appreciate the role and significance of other people. There should also be regional transfer of health care providers to help him or her in learning and appreciating every culture and race. The transfers offer the health practitioners an opportunity of interacting with other cultures thereby appreciating their significance. There should be fair promotional standards set for the health care to ensure that there is no discrimination or favoritism in promotions. The fairness promotes equality and diversity within the health care. Prejudice and Discrimination as causes of Disempowerment of Individuals How Prejudice and Discrimination leads to the Disempowerment of Individuals Prejudice and discrimination like sexual harassment lower self-esteem of the victims. The act leads social, psychological, and economic disempowerment of the victims. The discrimination lowers the quality of service offered by victims in their lines of duty. Psychological torture and loss of self-worth leads to associated health complications through stress. The psychological instability lowers the quality of socialization and service delivery to clients. Prejudice and discrimination cause unrest and lack of respect amongst individuals. A working environment with unrest compromises client relations, thereby lowering the quality of service delivery to the patients. According to Knifton (2012, p. 293) mental instability leads to stigmatization that may discourage patients or clients from seeking health care services. The consequence is a reduction in exploitation of health facilities that affects the economic growth negatively. Therefore, the government should incur costs in anti stigmatization campaigns to ensure that it retains a healthy nation (Knifton 2012, p.293). Prejudice and discrimination lead to negative feelings such as hurt and confusion amongst individuals. The individuals extend to reflect to upon peers, colleagues, and individuals. Health practitioners who operate under psychological instability may be reckless leading to associated accidents that end up in deaths. Discrimination compromises the quality of service delivery as unqualified professionals are hired to offer health services. Markkanen and Harrison (2013, p. 410) through their research reveals the negative influence that racial discrimination pose on an individual’s socio-economic status. Prejudice and discrimination compromise equality and diversity (Scott & Byrd 2012, p.427). Lack of diversity is a cause of race-based wars and unrests. The result of this is wars that lead to deaths. The disharmonious state denies others from working in the region’s leading to reduced economic power in the individual. Gender-based discrimination leads to self-devaluation that discourages extra effort to instill a difference within the healthcare. Individuals from the discriminated gender tend to feel inferior lowering collaboration in research and innovative initiatives within the healthcare. The inferiority feeling denies the individuals the right to exploit and exhibit their free will and potential towards work. Application of Human Rights in Healthcare Human rights play a crucial role in access to health care. According to the Department of Health (2008, p. 3), human rights help in improving professional experience, skills, and patient outcome by approaching services and decisions in an individual-centered way. Human rights support delivery of wider priorities in healthcare and enhance evidence-based reviews and commissioning of the health care systems. The application of human rights is diversified to cover all stages of health care. In addition, the use of stipulated rights improves compliance with United Kingdom Human Rights Act thus reducing complaints and litigations. The right to liberty, right to life, right to a fair trial and right to respect for private and family life are some of the key elements of Human right Act. Practices such restrictions on unsanitary conditions, staff disciplinary procedures, family visits, privacy of nurses, and restrictions on order resuscitation are some of the human rights practices. The international human rights law recognizes the right to health in the United Kingdom. The law emphasizes the right of every citizen to enjoyment of the highest achievable standards of mental and physical health. The Department of Health (2008, p. 3) ascertains that adopting a human rights-based approach provides an opportunity for every individual in a healthcare organization to make a real improvement in the quality of their lives. The National Health system organizations’ should develop human rights-based approaches to improving the service delivery, as well as health care of their patients and the staff. In doing so, NHS should put human rights at a central point in policy formulation and planning. Healthcare organizations should liberate for individual and cross-sector empowerment, accountability, active individual participation, and involvement, and without discrimination while laying more focus on attending the vulnerable groups. In addition, the right to health identifies availability, accessibility, acceptability, and quality of essential components of a health care system (FXB Center for Health and Human Rights 2013, p. 6). According to the World Health Organization, human rights, individual health, and well-being are substantially related. Failing to observe human rights in health care can cause or worsen disease especially in vulnerable populations. In health care populations such as people suffering from poverty, social exclusion, inequality, or adverse health conditions such as chronic diseases of cancer, diabetes and tuberculosis suffer more due to human rights violation. Weisstub and Pintos (2008, p. 292) ascertains that the Human Rights Convention mandates only on equitable access to quality health care by all races. As a result, organizations undertaking public functions and providing services such as NHS organizations have a crucial role to play in respecting, protecting, and fulfilling human rights. In conclusion, the Health and Human rights resource guide (2013, p. 6) identifies fundamental areas in of the human rights of access to health care including proper housing and access to adequate sanitation. Other areas include portable and safe water safe and healthy working conditions and access to healthcare information while ensuring an appropriate supply of safe food and nutrition Current Equality Legislation Implications for Health Care The current equality legislation has a number of implications for health care. According to the Department of Health (2011, p.40) equality promotion refers to the equal treatment of everyone. All individuals including the protected groups are entitled to fair treatment with proper elimination of all forms of discrimination while increasing equal opportunity with fostered good community relationship. The Equality Act of 2010 addresses nine key areas including civil partnership and marriage, race, disability, maternity and pregnancy age, religion or belief, gender reassignment, and sexual orientation. A detailed analysis of possible implications of the current equality legislation reveals that the health care system has to spend more efforts in addressing the nine characteristics. As a result, conducting a needs assessment at every local level will determine areas of greatest inequality. Sewell (2013, p. 1) ascertains that mental health strategy will reinforce the government to deliver quick access to prevention, promotion, and treatment. According to the Department of Health (2011, p. 44), there are three significant strategies that will result in the reduction of mental health inequality. The government must address concerns of inequalities resulting from poor mental health. The first step is to address inequalities that cause to poor mental health. Such variations include lower employment rates, inadequate housing, and addressing the differences in poor service delivery encompassing experience, access, and experience. In conclusion, adequate bias reduction will require a multi-stranded approach that integrates the economic, social, and environmental determinants. The approach should acknowledge that people have different protected characteristics hence it should address problems related to their mental health consequences. Social circumstances and living environment are critical in initiating mental health issues. Word Count: 1524 Words Bibliography Top of Form Department of Health February 2008, Human Rights In Healthcare A Framework For Local Action. Viewed February 8, 2015 from http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130107105354/http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@en/documents/digitalasset/dh_088972.pdf Department of Health February 2011, No Health without Mental Health: A Cross Government Mental Health Outcomes Strategy for People of All Ages Analysis of the Impact on Equality (AIE). Viewed February 8, 2015 from https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/213763/dh_123989.pdf FXB Center for Health and Human Rights 2013, Health and Human Rights Resource Guide. Viewed February 8, 2015 from http://kehpca.org/wp-content/uploads/HHRRG-master.pdf Knifton, L 2012, Understanding And Addressing The Stigma Of Mental Illness With Ethnic Minority Communities, Health Sociology Review, 21, 3, pp. 287-298, Markkanen, S, & Harrison, M 2013, ‘Race’, Deprivation and the Research Agenda: Revisiting Housing, Ethnicity and Neighbourhoods, Housing Studies, 28, 3, pp. 409-428. Scott, C. L., & Byrd, M. Y 2012, Handbook of Research on Workforce Diversity in A Global Society: Technologies And Concepts, Hershey, PA: Business Science Reference. Sewell, H 2013, The Equality Act 2010 in Mental Health A Guide to Implementation And Issues For Practice, London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Sewell, H. (2013). The Equality Act 2010 in Mental Health a Guide to Implementation and Issues for Practice. London, Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Weisstub, D. N., & Díaz Pintos, G 2008, Autonomy and Human Rights in Health Care: An International Perspective. Dordrecht, Springer. Bottom of Form Read More