Racism in health care
Racism is the act of discriminating someone or a group of people based on the colour, ethnic group or just a group of people that are considered to be a minority. Racism has been and will always be a significant threat to most sectors of the economy. Most individuals have still not come into terms that the world is a diversified community with people of different races, cultures, colour and religion. Racism has even led to violence in some countries worldwide to the extend of terrorism increasing. The health sector is one of the major sectors of the economy with different stakeholders. Police brutality has also been evident in the world nowadays against black people. The health sector in other white countries like Canada faces racism with black people’s health worsening.
Black people experience bias in the health care sector, because most of them cannot access quality healthcare, especially in minority communities. Existing policies and laws do not recognize their existence, and therefore, most of them should be revised as they limit access to health care facilities. Those who can access health care facilities are ignored while in the hospital. For instance, Brian Sinclair, a black patient died an unsudden death failure of being attended. Thirty-four hours in the emergency room without any attention and being ignored led to his death from a bladder infection. Worse is that nurses on duty walked down the waiting area, and they noticed him. But his colour, status and from the judgement of the nurses that he seemed poor and disabled-led to their ignorance, and he ended up dying because of racism.
Indigenous people are the most affected when it comes to racism. However, much health care workers deny that it is still evident that most indigenous people suffer when they go to hospitals. It has come to a point where racism has become individualized and that it does not focus on a particular group anymore. Health care workers and everyone else believes that health care depends on the individual. That certain factors like colonization, cultural oppression, racism and discrimination affect indigenous people. In real sense, illness is not anyone’s fault, and health care officials should treat every individual fairly. Colonial period introduced contagious diseases like HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections which have negatively affected both the indigenous and non-indigenous communities. Practices in the colonial period, like captivity, affected the indigenous peoples physical and mental health.
However, accessing health care facilities has been difficult for most of them since health care services have held on to the idea that indigenous people deserve less health care facilities. Cost of health care services seem to be high for most individuals, and so health care officials need to revisit and pass new policies that favour them. The history of delivering health care services shows that health care professionals do not realize that there is a systematic difference in providing health care services between the indigenous and non-indigenous people. There exists an imbalance in the way health care services are administered to the indigenous people compared to non-indigenous people. For instance, the indigenous people are unable to access the expensive medical covers that cater for life insurance. Instead, they only access those that cater for regular services.
Jurisdictional issues surrounding the type of services indigenous people can access is a messy reminder that the patriarchal system that is set up to manage indigenous people does not act right. The system is set up that incase indigenous people have to access health care services outside the country then only a few services can be available mostly provided by non-healthcare professionals. Low health care services have made the indigenous people have shorter life expectancy because of cultural barriers, language and jurisdictional limit their access to health care services that most non-indigenous people can access. Periodically, racial segregation has been the number one problem in health care institutions. Indigenous people are seen as non-important and that they deserve less care that is not urgent. This is evident in most health care institutions where black patients are those considered to be poor receive less attention in the waiting rooms compared to non-indigenous people.
There exists clear evidence that health care professionals serve indigenous people poorly since most of them blame them for the diseases. They are treated as if they do not belong, or they should be treated somewhere else, probably in their countries of origin. In Canada, for you to access health care services, there must exist an official document that recognizes you are in the Canadian health care system. Social health care policies have been eroded, community-based health care services have revolutionized, which impacts indigenous people differently. Indigenous people face certain disadvantages like lower literacy levels and low personal income which deliberately increases the rate of homelessness among the group. Lack of proper housing leads the different severe infections like cholera, and most don’t recover.
Factors like racism, discrimination and social exclusion seem to harm the health of indigenous people. Mental health is essential for the life of every individual no matter their race, colour and religion. However, most indigenous people cannot access such benefits because they are seen to be minor and that they don’t deserve to see therapists. Clinically, individuals brought forward with mental health issues mostly fall in the indigenous group bracket because their brain has already experienced severe damage. Now it becomes too late to reverse and some end up not getting any medical attention. Cultural sensitivity among health care officials seems to be lagging with most still holding on to the belief that indigenous people are worthless. Indigenous people face racisms while seeking health care services and most experience a negative attitude from the health care officials. Individuals who suffer from chronic diseases like HIV/AIDS or chronic pain syndromes are treated differently based on their group.
Non-indigenous personnel suffering from the same will receive immediate health care attention from workers who will effectively treat the patient. Indigenous individuals will probably even have to die in the waiting area or hospital bed because of a lack of attention. Non-indigenous people su8ffering from the same will not be judged in the case that it will not be considered it was their fault to get the disease. Instead, they will not be judged in any way, and they will receive full healthcare services. Indigenous individuals suffering from the same will be blamed for their carelessness and how they deserve the infection. Differences in the way patients are treated are still evident, depending on their status.
Indigenous people are associated with drug and substance abuse and the diseases that come from the same. Most will be blamed for their poverty, and when they fall sick, limited access to medical facilities leads to their death. Health care officials associate indigenous people with drug and substance abuse. Any patient considered to be from an indigenous group is always asked whether they abuse any drugs, which is different from non-indigenous people who will receive an excellent medical observation without being associated with drug and substance abuse. Societal views reflect in the way services are offered to different individuals depending on their society. Negative attitude towards some individuals can only be because the health care official dislikes their society, culture or race. For example, a black patient going to an emergency room was immediately judged that she was seeking pain medication. While in the real sense, she never abuses any drugs, and she never received any medical attention from the nurses in the hospital.
Health care professionals always take an oath to treat all patients equally no matter their race, culture or society. However, the environment they work in is mostly racist, which makes them adapt to the same behaviour. Physicians have now written a letter to reassure patients that there is no bias anymore and that human rights will be fair to everyone, including mental health, women’s health and that racism will end. Patients also insult doctors, and they seem to experience discrimination too. A Muslim doctor experiences shouting from a patient only because she is wearing a headscarf which is not good considering their religion allows that and the patient was being racist.
Doctors receive bias from patients according to their skin colour, religion or even culture. Most patients discriminate against black doctors with the belief that they probably do not deserve the position in the first place. Most whites have the idea that white people are the most educated and they can treat better and so, they dislike black, Jewish and Indian doctors. Patients and health care officials need guides to help them fight against racism in the health care sector. COVID-19 has adversely affected most countries worldwide, including black ethnic groups which changed the view of racism in the health care sector. Statistically, black people are most likely to dies from COVID compared to white people because of the lack of adequate health care. With them being at a higher risk of infection because of their lifestyles, most do not receive sufficient health care attention.
US statistics reveal that most doctors are white with them, covering a percentage of 13 per cent and black doctors covering only 4 per cent. Negative stereotypes against some ethnic groups and races affect how doctors treat patients some giving them inadequate treatment for their diseases. Black people are often believed to have inferior bodies that are prone to infections, and they do not deserve proper medical attention. During the war, doctors used spirometer to measure the lung capacity of both black and white soldiers, and they concluded that black people had inferior bodies because of their low lung capacity. This has been passed over to generations of doctors who still hold the same belief, and it is reflected in the way they treat black patients with bias, discrimination and less medical attention.
During the 20th century, black people were used as medical experiments. In 1982, the US government recruited black men to study syphilis infection. About three hundred and ninety-nine had the disease, and instead of getting treatment, they were observed until they died, which is inhumane. New vaccines are invented in labs for various infections, and most are tested in African countries. For instance, the COVID virus vaccine designed was supposed to be tested on Africans first and see its effectiveness. If it worked well, then white countries would be given the vaccine for treatment. They cannot test the vaccine on non-indigenous people simply because black people are considered to be poor, and they would need the vaccine later, which is a way of racial discrimination. Technology advances have made health care systems advance to use computers to be able to health care services. Statistics have shown that two million people in the US discriminate against black people.
The computer gave people who identified themselves as black low-risk scores compared to white people. Lower risk scores led to low referrals in case of severe infections, and most patients reportedly died. They discriminated on the referrals because they thought that care costs for black people were similarly lower than those of white people despite black patients having more severe infections. Black people have since had lower levels of trust for health care systems because of the racism that exists. Health care officials discriminate a specific group of members directly or indirectly. Direct discrimination includes ignorance in the waiting areas, denial of proper medical treatment, negative attitude from health officials, low services in hospitals like food.
Black people can be educated, but getting health care jobs from the facilities can be difficult. Most human Resource Managers discriminate on them because of their colour. Policies passed do not change the idea of them being recruited to work in an all-white environment. Those who get jobs are highly discriminated against by their workers, patients and even the managers. Most of them end up being depressed or having mental issues, and they cannot access better health care facilities. Job dissatisfaction because of the working environment causes some to leave the organization with minimal experience gotten from the job. Those employed also get a hard time working there because whites are given the priority in everything like promotions, and they end up experiencing racism in the job they are passionate about. Black people are rarely given opportunities like doing surgeries in an all-white hospital because they are believed to be inferior and incompetent in the work.
During 1999, researchers noted that most doctors did not offer the necessary heat treatment to women and black people. Lately, sex and race disparities have determined how patients with heart diseases are treated. Black people are most likely not to be assigned a black specialist compared to white people. Rarely, an intervention is done to determine the blood supply to their hearts. When it is done, a few steps are taken to consider their treatment since most of them biased and end up dying. Daily, about 13 patients die from illnesses, and black people are eight among the patient. The high death rate from lack of proper treatment is expected in all countries with African-American people or black people.
The language barrier has negatively affected how patients are treated in health care facilities. Most patients who do not speak English are highly disregarded when they go for treatment. Spanish and Chinese speaking groups were most likely to be mistreated because of their language. A patient who speaks English well will be treated well and differently. Those who speak English somewhat will be biased because they are not fluent and therefore, receive insufficient medical attention. When someone cannot explain themselves, health care officials from receptionists, doctors and nurses treat the person differently with a lot of discrimination. Most patients end up wishing that they can advance their English to get better treatment. Health care officials with the language barrier also find it challenging to communicate with immigrated patients. Most of them do not understand English well, and this causes poor treatment to the patients, which affects the image of the hospital.
Health care officials ignore patients who cannot speak well. Interpreters are not familiar in a hospital setting, and misunderstanding can cause the patient to be treated for a disease they are not sick. Patients with severe health conditions are forced to struggle with their illness in the case where they receive little attention. Persons with disabilities are highly discriminated against in a health care setting. Deaf people who cannot talk find it challenging to communicate with health care officials who do not understand sign language. People discriminate against them regarding them as inferior, and they are not able to do anything; thus, they receive poor medical treatment. Some of them end up fearing hospitals because of the kind of bad treatment they get.
Health care officials often judge people according to their socio-economic status. People have different levels of income, and that should not determine the kind of treatment they get because everyone is equal. Human rights are for everyone, and proper medical health care is familiar to everyone. Health care officials sometimes fail to prescribe particular medicine to some people because of their cost. They assume that the person cannot afford the prescription and therefore, offered cheaper treatment which will probably not work. African-American people can rarely access health insurance in foreign countries, and so, doctors assume that they are poor and of low status. However, insurance companies need to pass new laws and policies that allow black people to access medical insurance cover for better treatment when they are sick. With health care services being expensive, especially those of chronic disease, black people cannot afford such. So, they should be lenient to ensure that everyone accesses such benefits for better health.
Everyone needs to realize that the struggle of one person no matter their race, ethnic group, religion, and culture is the struggle of everyone. Health care officials need to hold seminars on racism and how they can deal with the problem. Patients need to be sensitized on the idea that all doctors are equal no matter their race, colour or religion; they all offer the same services. Goals of the health care system need to be linked with the actions of everyone for success. Insurance companies need to pass new laws and policies that favour black people or people of low-income status to access medical insurance covers. Patients should be treated equally, and doctors need to change their behaviour of being choosy. Law enforcement groups should pass new laws that govern those who do not follow the procedures given.