Nursing Assignment Private and Public Healthcare Systems

Question: Describe about the Nursing Assignment for Private and Public Healthcare Systems. Answer: Is there a relationship between health and human rights? Health and human rights are interdependent on each other for exploring about people's health and wellbeing. Health is defined as a state of physical, psychological and mental well-being of humans and it is every human's right to enjoy the highest attainable standard of health (Nobile, 2014). The existence of this human right is crucial to the attainment of other rights in the society too. Health professional plays a vital role in balancing health and human rights by providing the high quality of care to all patients without any discrimination or human rights violation (Bowling, 2014). The possible human rights that could be related to health are the right to health information, the right to privacy, the right to non-discrimination in health service delivery, the right to safe delivery of care and right to safe and working conditions in the society (Ife, 2012). The first link between health and human right is seen from the impact of existing health policies and programs on human rights. The ideal approach for making any health policies would be to achieve a fine balance between public health goals and the basic human rights goal. The modern concept of health focussed on the discipline of advanced medicine that focus on the individual person and the public health discipline which addressed the health issues in a selected population. Besides this, the modern concept of human rights is listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights under the UN Charter. The human rights law mainly focuses on the impact of states action on citizens such as exploitation of natural resource and the harm caused to residents by the action. However public health decisions and policies are made in an unsystematic manner, there is a need to attain goals of the policy without being a burden to human rights (Winter et al., 2016). The second link between health and human right is that violation of human rights may lead to adverse impact on health. Abuse of human rights is evident from incidents like mental torture, inhuman treatment of servants, rape, and mistreatment. This form of torture significantly affects the mental and social development of a person, and the victim suffers from acute depression and mental disorder. In the context of human rights, the second form of violation witnessed in the society is the violation of the right to health information (Braveman, 2014). For example, in the case of tobacco sale or contraceptive pills, it has been found that the harmful health effects or valid biological impacts of the drug are not stated. This is a serious violation and may lead to the huge cost to the health system due to harmful effects of the drug or tobacco. In a similar way, many such links between health and human rights exist in the society. The above information gives an insight into basic health right of human and what the society needs to do to promote the well-being of the community. However, both positive and negative link between health and human rights exists. Therefore, health professionals and public health department have the responsibility to understanding the crucial relationship between health and human rights to promote access to health and promote the well-being of the society. Do privatized health care systems deliver better care? Public health care system is a tow-tier system divided into government-provided health care services and privatized health care service. While government health care services are more affordable for patients, the privatized health care service is costly as it provides quick service in case of the health emergency. Privatized health care systems are mainly more efficient compared to the public health sector regarding quality of service and pace at which service is delivered. While public-sector service is more equitable, the advantages of the privatized health care system are more accountable and sustainable than the public sector. A majority of the population mainly relies on private care due to good hygienic condition, high quality and experienced medical professionals, the availability of complex diagnostic instruments or tools and the efficacy of health outcome. The Australian health care system is a combination of public and private settings that provide a variety preventive and public health services to the community. The different types of service include primary health care, palliative care, rehabilitation service, emergency health service and hospital based service. Private sector operated the privatized health care system. Based on different public opinion, it can be said that mostly patients seek private health care service to receive treatment in lesser time. Government based service are mainly over-burdened with patients, and this leads to long waits for patients to seeks medical care (Duggan et al., 2015). Hence private health care system solves this problem to get quick access to care but with an additional cost involved. The success of privatized health care also stems from the fact that physicians and health professionals have the scope for more diverse and competition in health care delivery. Due to the open nature of privatized care, health professionals also aim to provide better service to attract more patients as far as possible. This is also important to build a level of trust with the health care receivers. Hence, in developed countries, the main objective is to utilize the knowledge of highly experienced medical professionals by giving support with sophisticated medical infrastructure and equipment. In poor countries the facilities may not be as sound as developed countries and the private health care system is fragmented. They may be dominated by unregulated groups due to which the quality is compromised in some private health care systems too (Basu et al., 2012). The rise of private health care system has been possible mainly due to increased privatization. Due to unappealing conditions experienced in government hospitals, consumers prefer private facilities. These are more accessible, efficient and have no shortage of staffs and drugs. The increase in affluence and financial stability of people have also spurred the demand for private health care service. Health rights have also been recognized by this model of service delivery, and it has given patients solidarity regarding health. Privatization has also enhanced the obligation to protect citizens and decrease the incidence of infringement of human rights. Private health care staffs are more vigilant due to strict guidelines for maintaining high quality of care in the hospital setting. Better accountability for health decisions has also been achieved by this service in the presence of efficient regulatory health policies (Mills, 2014). Second section Does racism inhibit the provision of adequate nursing care? Racism is defined as practice of systematic oppression and exploitation of different racial groups (Hall Fields 2013). Racism continues to be the part of the tradition of Australian society which is affecting the health care system, the minority population, and the profession of nursing. It is the prominent and a negative prejudice existing in countries such as Australia and America. The quality of the health care is affected in both cases when the racism is from patients end and from the nurses end. The essay discusses the issue in detail supporting the facts with literature review. In Australia Racism is found to be manifested in the attitude of nurses towards the patients, colleagues and other health care professionals of different ethnic group. Racism impacts the health environment as well those people receiving the care services (Moceri, 2014). The nurses discriminate the patients on the basis of their race and do not provide equal care services to all the patients. Eventually these nurses do not fill obliged to detail the benefits, side effects, risks, associated with the case before the client agrees to participate thereby violating the principles of Ethics and Human Rights. According to Greer et al. (2014) African-American nurses failed to adhere to guidelines of diseases such as cardiovascular disease or hypertensions as a result of discrimination against blacks. It is leading to high a mortality and morbidity rate which is significantly varying among different racial and ethnic groups. Patients experiencing racial discrimination from the nurses fail to build therapeutic relationship with nurses. Therefore, nurses fail to meet the needs of the patients due to such biasness as their attitude impacts their empathy, compassion, and sensitivity towards the patients. Therefore, patients feel that their respect and dignity is not maintained. It was found from the study of Williams Mohammed, (2013) that lack of culturally competency among the nurses is one of the major causes of high representation of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in death and disability. Nurses in many cases have been found to be both the victims and the perpetrators of racial discrimination. Robinson (2014) studied that nursing care is effected when the patients of Indigenous community prefer nurses and physicians only belonging to same race and often reject those nurses assigned to them if found of different religion and race. This selective mistreatment adversely affects the attitude of nurses towards their responsibilities and services as it undermines the work experience. This impacts the provision of adequate care as nurses are identified with groups that are the targets of discriminatory behaviors. Patients with such negative prejudice make decisions based on their perceptions (Robinson, 2014). For example, patients prefer nurses belonging to same race irrespective of their experiences and high qualification believing he/she would deliver high quality care. This really deprives them of high quality care in cases the chosen nurse is nave and not competent with nursing skills. In conclusion racism inhibits the provision of adequate nursing care. The nursing committee of Australia is working towards delivery of health care to all the people and in promotion of justice. There is a need of eradicating racism at a pace greater than that occurring currently as discrimination in health services based on personal characteristics such as race is not morally and ethically correct. Is economic inequality a threat to good health? Australia is one of the wealthiest countries in this world and is found with increasing incidence of economic inequality (Fenna Tapper, 2015). According to the ABS survey data the increase has been found substantial in the period 2001-2010. The relation between health and economic inequality has been deduced by epidemiological researches several years ago. Income inequality effects health and social life and is harmful beyond a certain threshold (Whiteford, 2014). The essay discusses the issue in details in the subsequent sections and supports the fact with literature review. According to Pickett Wilkinson, (2015) high risk of schizophrenia is observed in the countries with larger rich-poor gaps. The US based study by Mackenbach, (2012) revealed that high level of stress is observed in households with annual income below $60000 compared to households with high annual incomes. This indicates the effect of income inequality on the mental health. The economic inequality hinders good health of people and is evident from the economists and health experts comment that people living in poorer societies live shorter lives (Fenna Tapper, 2015). According to Fletcher Guttmann, (2013), high level of economic inequality is responsible poor health outcomes such as life expectancy, obesity, and infant mortality. Epidemiological studies by Kawachi Subramanian, (2014) argue that poverty may affect good health but economic inequality negatively effects the health of affluent as well. Such inequality negatively influences the social cohesion. This results in increase o f fear, stress and insecurity for everyone (Saunders, 2015). These results are consistent with the studies of Mackenbach, (2012) which showed that in American states whites in comparison to blacks have low mortality rates but have higher incomes. Further, places with high population of blacks have relatively high mortality and income inequality. People experiencing income inequality have high anxiety level about status. The competition for status increases as economic inequality places people in different hierarchy (Pickett Wilkinson, 2015). This increase in stress is due to difficulty in living with few rich people in community (Pickett Wilkinson, 2015). This is consequently translated into mental health problems and cardiac diseases among low-income earning groups. Saunders, (2015) studied that due to economic inequality the income is concentrated in fewer hands. Consequently, more number of low-income households are generated. Lack of money decreases the accessibility to better health services. However Whiteford, (2014) argued that economic inequality does not affect all the groups in the society at a same level. The study demonstrated that in equal countries people in lower socio-economic groups have better health when compared to similar groups in unequal countries. Based on the literature review it can be concluded that economic inequality effects good health. However not all the studies have showed an independent effect of the economic inequality on health. 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