Advance Human Rights
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Advance Human Rights
Part One: Policy Sector and Red Flag Alerts
There exists a close relationship between justice, human rights, and advocacy. Human rights in the United States refer to universal freedoms and fundamental rights, such as education, life, health, and liberty. In some instances and instances, human rights are often violated, resulting in the need for justice. This is because human rights are respected by the constitution, and victims often require justice. Justice is hence the process through which people seek legal redress in instances where their rights have been violated (Jansson, 2016). Though justice is universal and free, advocacy becomes necessary where there are challenges in obtaining justice, such as in instances where victims are too young to seek legal redress or are incapable of doing so due to social, economic, and even religious barriers. Increased cases of corruption in the legal system also deny victims the right to a fair hearing hence necessitating advocacy. Besides representation in the legal system, advocacy also plays a crucial role in educating different people on their rights and freedoms.
The health care system in the United States has, over the years, developed to accommodate the needs of all stakeholders. The sector has, however, been faced with serious challenges in different areas, including inadequate funding and staffing. These challenges lead to poor quality of services offered to patients. The government of the United States, working with other key players in the sector, has, over the years, implemented reforms aimed at improving the operations and outcomes in this sector. There are, however, red flags in the sector that still need to be addressed. This paper will focus on the increased cases of abuse to patients’ ethical rights by health care practitioners and deterioration in the quality of services offered by health care practitioners in the United States. Micro advocacy will be used to address the first red flag. In contrast, macro advocacy will be applied to deal with institutional challenges that lead to poor services to patients.
Part Two: Micro Advocacy Response
Red Flag: Patients’ Ethical Rights
The setting of the above advocacy practice is within the healthcare system in a health care facility in an urban center. As a human rights advocate, my role in this setting would be to advocate for respect to patients’ ethical rights through ensuring that health care systems have in place ethical standards and practices that allow them to respect patient’s autonomy at all levels of treatment (UNESCO, 2011). The health care facility is a private institution headed by a managing director and a board to oversee the operations of the facility.
The case in question relates to an American man aged 83 years who has colon cancer and seeks medical help from the healthcare facility. The patient is often brought to the facility by his family and, in some instance’s family friends. There have been complaints by the family that the health care facility often violates the patient’s right to information, and medical practitioners carry out procedures and administer medicine without the patient’s or the family’s consent. This is against both the human rights stipulated in the constitution of the United and the rights of patients as stipulated in different medical practices.
To address the issue, an organization’s health practice policy that advocates for the involvement of the patient and his or her family in the treatment should be in place. Such a policy, for example, would entail having the organization adopt a patient-centered approach to treatment and care. The patient-centered care approach to medicine advocates for clinicians to treat patients with compassion, respect, and dignity as well as provide personalized support and treatment while involving the patient and his or her family in the treatment process. The management of the organization is tasked with the role of formulating, monitoring, and evaluating patient-centered policies that require clinicians to respect patient information and accord them the right level of dignity. The clinicians in the organization are tasked with the role of implementing policies put in place.
The micro advocacy policy to be applied in this case will entail discussing with the respective health care practitioners, the patient, and the family. This allows for an open discussion and gives the patient a chance to express themself. The second step or activity would be to engage the individual clinicians and understand the importance of respecting a patient’s information and rights and the implication of the same to the patient and the facility. By so doing, clinicians see things from the patient’s perspective. The third activity would be to assist the facility in drafting and implementing a proper policy that allows clinicians to work with patients during the treatment process. These advocacy activities will be beneficial to the facility and the client. This is so because the client will now benefit from holistic care and treatment hence better clinical outcomes.
Part Three: Macro Advocacy Response
The setting of this advocacy is at the State and Federal level of handling issues within the health care system in the United States. Inequality in the health care sector affects all citizens. Still, it has a major adverse effect on the low income and middle-class earners in the society, especially in the urban areas, which are not able to access private high-end health care services (Raffel & Barsukiewicz, 2002). One critical gap that exists in this sector is the fact that private health care facilities offer relatively quality services as opposed to government-funded institutions. These differences imply that people seeking healthcare services in most organizations do not receive quality health care hence violating their right to affordable and quality health care.
Policies such as proper funding to all health care facilities and government-sponsored health insurance policies for all citizens could address the issue of inequality in the sector. Adequate financing for healthcare facilities ensures that they can pay staff, obtain medicines, implement digital systems, and even obtain machines and equipment necessary for the quality of services. This policy is formulated and implemented at the State and Federal levels, with major decisions made by leaders in the Ministry of Health and other health stakeholders. One key supporter of the policy is the need to accord all humans the right to health care and life. To be able to do this, there needs to be policies and systems that allow people to access quality and affordable health care services.
Some macro advocacy activities under this focus would be researching the needs and challenges of the health care sector in the United States. This would then be followed by policy formulation to address the challenges. Even though policy formulation is the role of government institutions, the role of implementation lies with other players in the sector, and hence the need to involve them at all levels of addressing the challenges. Once policies are formulated, they are then implemented and monitored in key areas within the sector. The expected outcome is better performance of the overall system and hence better clinical outcomes for all patients as well as equality in the sector brought about by the ability to access quality and affordable health care services by all citizens.
Part Four: Human Rights & Social, Economic, and Environmental Justice
This section addresses the macro advocacy approach used to address inequality in the health care system within the United States. Health is a universal right, and hence the need for all people to be able to access quality and affordable health care. It is also closely related to the quality of life an individual life. As such, health care policies that lead to improvements in health care facilities have an impact on the entire sector. Equality in health care not only accords people of their human rights but also ensures that people are empowered socially and economically.
A healthy society has a positive impact on the economy of the country since healthy people can contribute to the development of a country (Raffel & Barsukiewicz, 2002). The healthcare system is a crucial aspect of the economy of the United States and is closely related to the social aspect of people. Advocacy in this sector entails protecting the rights of all key players and ensuring that sound policies are in place to ensure equitable distribution of health resources. Through such policies, all citizens receive quality and affordable health care services.
The health care system is closely linked to other sectors of the economy, including the labor industry. Adequate funding policies ensure that healthcare workers receive appropriate remuneration for their work and are motivated enough to implement the policies put in place. This, in turn, results in improved overall performance in the sector and the general health of the society. The policy hence allows all key stakeholders to work towards the achievement of the overall health care goal of providing quality and affordable medical services to all citizens.
References
Jansson, B. S. (2016). Social welfare policy and advocacy: Advancing social justice through 8
policy sectors.
Raffel, M. W., & Barsukiewicz, C. K. (2002). The U.S. health system: Origins and functions.
Australia: Delmar/Thomson Learning.
UNESCO. (2011). Casebook on human dignity and human rights.