Oppression in Health Care Working in an oppressed work environment is challenging not only subjective to oppression by the dominant white workers but witnessed co-workers being victimized. These incidents happened in a health care environment. The staff complement consists of twelve nurses including one Aboriginal native nurse, one black nurse myself, and one male French Canadian nurse. A white female manager completes the complement. The manager who has worked for this heath care for twenty years brought the facility ways how to manage staff and coordinate the facility. One of my manager’s mandates is to have a diverse staff complement.
Reflective assessment is a useful tool to help students and teachers view the signs of oppression through the other person’s eyes (Bond, Evans, & Ellis, 2011). Students and teachers have a joint ownership of the learning experience. Equally important this paper a requirement for CMT-508 Diversity in Service Provision is to analyze and reflect on the experiences of others faced with oppression; and how I can contribute to the anti-racist health care environment.
Health Care
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Knowing the different types of power can be an asset for the nurse manager or leader. Tomey(2004) stated that “informal sources of power are related to one’s personal power rather than position power” (p.112). Nurses are encouraged to empower clients with the evidence-based knowledge to enable clients to formulate informed deisions. Formal power is the power one acquires in one’s position of authority. My manager has the authority to hire and terminate
Throughout American history, relationships between racial and ethnic groups have been marked by antagonism, inequality, and violence. In today’s complex and fast-paced society, historians, social theorists and anthropologists have been known to devote significant amounts of time examining and interrogating not only the interior climate of the institutions that shape human behavior and personalities, but also relations between race and culture. It is difficult to tolerate the notion; America has won its victory over racism. Even though many maintain America is a “color blind nation,” racism and racial conflict remain to be prevalent in the social fabric of American institutions. As a result, one may question if issues and challenges regarding the continuity of institutional racism still exist in America today. If socialization in America is the process by which people of various ethnicities and cultures intertwine, it is vital for one to understand how the race relations shape and influence personalities regarding the perceptions of various groups. Heartbreaking as it is, racism takes a detour in acceptance of its blind side. Further, to better understand racism one must take into account how deeply it entrenched it is, not only in politics, and economics but also Health Care settings. In doing so, one will grasp a decisive understanding of "who gets what and why.” The objective of this paper is to explore and examine the pervasiveness of racism in the health care industry, while at the same time shed light on a specific area of social relations that has remained a silence in the health care setting. The turpitude feeling of ongoing silence has masked the treatment black patients have received from white health care providers...
an experience I had earlier this year in a diversity seminar that was held on my job. We had a
I believe equality means every individual should be treated and given the same attention no matter who they are. No individual should be discriminated due to their disability. The equality act came into effect in October 2010. This is a law which protects people from being treated differently because of their disability. Equality in health care is ensuring everyone has an access to medical care despite who they are. Equality is about creating a fairer society where everyone regardless of who they are has a chance to fulfil their potential. By getting rid of prejudice and discrimination, the NHS can now distribute services that are personal, fair and diverse society which is healthier and happier.
In recent discussions of health care disparities, a controversial issue has been whether racism is the cause of health care disparities or not. On one hand, some argue that racism is a serious problem in the health care system. From this perspective, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) states that there is a big gap between the health care quality received by minorities, and the quality of health care received by non-minorities, and the reason is due to racism. On the other hand, however, others argue that health care disparities are not due to racism. In the words of Sally Satel, one of this view’s main proponents, “White and black patients, on average don’t even visit the same population of physicians” (Satel 1), hence this reduces the chances of racism being the cause of health care disparities. According to this view, racism is not a serious problem in the health care system. In sum, then, the issue is whether racism is a major cause of health care disparities as the Institute of Medicine argues or racism is not really an issue in the health care system as suggested by Sally Satel.
However, the current movement of the field of nursing and the existing nurse-patient relationship both work to reveal that the nurse does hold significant job power. The implications of this power signify that the nurse has the ability to make changes related to overall health care, as well as more specific changes involving patient care (Marquis & Huston, 2014). Consequently, this power succeeds in adding to the image and overall appeal of the profession. The power that nurses have can only be described as a positive or constructive form of power that ultimately is essential for expanding and promoting the
The impact of racism faced by migrant nurses could result to loss of self-esteem and loss of confidence in their own capabilities as competent nurses (Larsen 2007). Racism violates values of fairness and equality which denies its victims respect and dignity. It also empowers perpetrators to humiliate others (Soutphommasane, 2013). Experiencing racial discrimination has been linked to substance and alcohol misuse and an increased risk of obesity, heart disease and stroke (de Castro, Gee, and Takeuchi, 2008). According to Herbert et al (2008), racism may affect the quality of work life of nurses and the quality of patient care they deliver where racism is practiced because more time is spent coping with the challenges of racial discrimination rather than delivering patient care. Racism at work place doesn’t only affect the target group, it is also bad for these organisations. Organisations could suffer disharmony and high resignation level. There is an economic cost to companies tolerating racism in any case. A workplace containing racial discrimination will be a less productive workplace and produce poor job quality and reduced morale (Wang and Kleiner, 2002). In contrast, companies committed to workplace diversity have reported enhanced creativity and improved employee problem solving skills and productivity. Racism is sometimes underreported for the same reasons as workplace bullying: fear of making matters worse, belief that nothing will be done, concerns regarding confidentiality, fear of victimisation, and concern about being labelled as a troublemaker (Mistry and Latoo,
...regardless of skin color or gender, feel the same effects: a brick wall placed between them and their constitutional right of prosperity and equality. Over the last hundred years our societal values (in employment) have swung from an anything goes mentality to the other end of the spectrum, the era of "political correctness" where you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. Uncertainty prevails. It is apparent, though, that the proverbial "pendulum" is in an evening-out process and trying to find middle ground.
Cognitive objectives covered in this course focused on understanding life experiences of diverse populations across the world as well as being aware of our own prejudices and attitudes towards diverse populations. The objectives focused on understanding institutional racism in both present day societies as well as in the past and focused on understanding oppression and injustice in society that diverse populations face. Cognitive objectives focus on a set of theories that leads to our understanding of cultural diversity in America. Cognitive objectives recognize social workers task in combating oppression and injustice in society as well as learning and understanding cultural diversity and supporting and encouraging strategies for social change.
In today’s workplace, African Americans continue to be subjected to overt discrimination. This can take the form of ethnic jokes, racial slurs and exclusionary behaviors by Euro-American co-workers and managers. Even more disturbing is the verbal abuse, calculated mistreatment and even physical threats experienced by some African Americans while on the job. African Americans have also faced overt acts such as being reassigned to lower level projects, not receiving a promotion even though they were equally qualified and receiving less wages than other employees, even less qualified new hires. The discrimination can be so pervasive that African Americans feel uneasy and threatened, demotivated and disrespected, eventually feeling forced to leave to search for other employment.
Unlike cultural competence, Anti- racism and the Anti-oppression framework has a clear focus, to directly address oppressive practices, and privilege in large institutions. In the “ More than being against it: Anti– racism and Anti –oppression in mental health services “ the authors Simon Corneau and Vicky Stergiopouls, identify seven strategies of the anti-racism and anti-oppression that should be employed when practicing direct service with clients. These seven strategies are "empowerment, education, alliance building, language, alternative, healing strategies, advocacy, social justice/activism, and fostering reflexivity” (Corneau & Stergiopoulos, 2012). The goal of using these seven strategies with clients is to engage the client in the process of care by recognizing the strengths and knowledge that the client brings to the relationship and honoring the idea that there is a racial feature of oppression that is inherent in the dynamics of the client clinician relationships. For example, the use of this practice in my current job with the Family Drug Courts could have a profound effect on the outcomes for both parents and children involved in the program. One example is the case of a 28-year-old mother of three that was separated from her children because of her drug addiction. This parent had an extensive history of trauma,
Discrimination in health care is an ethical issue focused on age, gender, income, chronic illness, and ethnic disparities. Discrimination occurs when a group of individuals are highly favored above another, either consciously or not. In Carolyn Clancy’s speech, she addresses this issue of “It makes a difference in people’s lives when breast cancer is diagnosed early with timely mammography; when a patient suffering from a heart attack is given the correct lifesaving treatment in a timely fashion; when medications are correctly administered; and when doctors listen to their patients and their families, show them respect, and answer their questions” (Clancy, pp. 3). It is very interesting to see that knowing is able to cure treatment, but minorities especially blacks face breasts cancer in the worse manner due to not having the right resources for treatment. Whether the issues of direct or indirect discrimination occurs, these actions affect the lives of working Americans and their right to receive quality healthcare. In a the research article it mentioned that, healthcare providers’ assessment and treatment decisions are based off their feelings about patients, which is usually influenced by patients’ race or ethnicity. (Nelson, pp. 5) Relationships between race or ethnicity and treatment decisions are complex, they are usually influenced by
The purpose of this essay is to firstly give an overview of the existence of inequalities of health related to ethnicity, by providing some evidence that ethnic inequality in health is a reality in the society and include definitions of keywords. Secondly, I will bring forward arguments for and against on the major sociological explanations (racial discrimination, arefact, access to and quality of care) for the existence of health inequalities related to ethnicity. Thirdly, I would also like to take the knowledge learnt for this topic and brief outline how this may help me in future nursing practice.
Today’s society protects against discrimination through laws, which have been passed to protect minorities. The persons in a minority can be defined as “a group having little power or representation relative to other groups within a society” (The Free Dictionary). It is not ethical for any person to discriminate based on race or ethnicity in a medical situation, whether it takes place in the private settings of someone’s home or in a public hospital. Racial discrimination, in a medical setting, is not ethical on the grounds of legal statues, moral teachings, and social standings.
To initially alter these systems of injustices it is imperative that we change the attitudes of the people who make up these entities. It is the individual acts of bias and prejudice in which institutional discrimination is built on. Without that single person’s activities, organizational discrimination cannot exist. We can only destroy these forms of inequality if we focus on the individual level and not the institutional level. When we direct our attention to the organization the person responsible is not held accountable for their actions. There were also examples of institutional discrimination in the healthcare where minorities and women were not receiving similar levels of care as white men. This form of bias falls on the shoulders of the doctors, nurses, healthcare administrators and insurance representatives making these bias decisions. We as a society must be willing to challenge these everyday acts of maltreatment, which are subtle, implicit, and hard to identify. However, the effects of this injustice will be blatant, transparent, and are easy to recognize (Kaufman,
Workplace harassment is unwelcome actions that are based on a person’s race, religion, color, and sex, and gender, country of origin, age, ethnicity or disability. The targets of the harassment are people who are usually perceived as “weaker” or “inferior” by the person who is harassing them. Companies and employers can also be guilty of workplace harassment if they utilize discriminatory practices against persons based on ethnicity, country of origin, religion, race, color, age, disability, or sex. These discriminatory practices have been illegal since the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Civil Rights Act of 1964), and have been amended to be more inclusive of other people who experience discrimination by the Civil Rights Act of 1991 (The Civil Rights Act of 1991), and most recently, President Obama’s signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 (Stolberg, 2009).