I’ve lived in places where healthcare was inaccessible, where doctors were not fully equipped with the tools necessary to preform regular checkups, and where people died chilling deaths from misdiagnoses or lack there of. I was born in Khartoum, Northern Sudan as my parents were in transit to come to the land of the free from Eritrea. In the midst of its 30-year war with Ethiopia, both of my parents fled the compromised country at the age of 18 and 20. The war had made it difficult for children to attend school, therefore my parents fled with what would be considered a middle school education. After two years and through much treachery, we successfully made it to America.
The major difference between Eritrea and the United States is the
…show more content…
The process of receiving and affording healthcare was, at the time, out of reach. Once my family was able to attain healthcare insurance, doctor visits were unpleasant. The physicians struggled to comprehend my parents’ needs, while my parents simultaneously struggled to understand the diagnoses provided by the physicians. These instances led to the frustrations of the physicians because of the communication barrier, which led to their inability to do their job at their full potential. Due to this dilemma, our visits to the doctor were few and far between.
As I grew older, the need for me to attend these visits were increased due to my proficiency in English. Fortunately, there was now a translator between my parents and the physician, however the authenticity of the translation was skeptical. This is a common issue among the children of non-English speaking families who are unable to successfully relay issues regarding health and finances from the healthcare provider themselves. Due to the complexity of the conditions and the emotional burden that it may contain, I often found myself struggling to relay these messages to my family. There were times where I found myself sugarcoating the diagnoses given by the physician because I did not understand the severity and because I did not want it to impact my family. Once I became a teenager, I realized withholding pertinent information was actually doing more harm than good.
When I
The transportation of people, goods, and information is one of the crucial matters in the lives of human beings. Both developing and developed countries measure their development in respect to the reliability of their transportation, its safety, coverage, availability and the technologies used. The Ethiopian transportation system uses some of the United State transportation systems and technologies. However, the U.S. and Ethiopia transportation systems have very huge differences in terms of accessibility, technology, coverage, type and cost.
To have quality of care within the health care system, effective communication is needed. Barriers arise when effective communication is not meet, patients with limited English proficiency are at risk for misdiagnosis, poor treatment decisions, trust between provider and patient is not there, and patients to not adhere to treatment plans and follow up if they do not understand what they need to do (Regenstein, Mead, Muessig, & Huang, 2009).
Patients with long-term, chronic illnesses like Mr. Davis’s, care can be very costly, especially when the patient is unable to maintain routine medical care or visits and medications. Without routine medical care and maintenance medications, patients like Mr. Davis tend to have more frequent emergency room visits and hospitalizations; increasing costs for state and local government as well as tax payers. Though Mr. Davis is able to receive care during an emergency room visit, the providers are not fully aware of his health history and are only able to provide a temporary fix of his symptoms and not address his health care needs.
Currently, most people generally accept a doctor’s word as truth and do not question him or her. When it comes to the medical field, patients can often feel overwhelmed by all the confusing medical terms being thrown at them, so they tend to sit back and do as the doctor says. Healthcare professionals sometimes take advantage of this fact and withhold important information from their patients. For instance, a study conducted by Lisa Lezzoni, MD, and her peers states that more than half of physicians lied to their patients about their diagnosis to put a more positive spin on it (Lezzoni, Rao, DesRoches, Vogeli, and Campbell). Healthcare professionals should disclose to the patient any information pertaining to the patient.
The purpose of effective communication in healthcare is to provide first-class medical care, minimal to no medical errors and have precision; and without it there is room for medical errors, poor patient care and an ineffective team that produces undesired outcome. In the professional and patient relationship, the lack of good communication causes the patient to be apprehensive in asking questions, to worry about being bothersome because they feel other patients are sicker, and there is an assumption that the patient does not have any concerns. There are barriers to communication that include only one between the sender and receiver of the message understands the message, cultural differences, and lack of education. In sending the message it is essential that the message is received with clarity, it is concise and complete. If the patient has a language barrier, it can be masked by the patient not responding to information and it is detected as a result of poor or no compliance. In literacy concerns, all information should be presented on a 5th grade level to aid in the comprehension of the information. The care of the patient should be patient/family centered which helps in detecting any language, cultural or literacy barriers (Schyve, 2007). For example, a 46 year old single male patient that is functionally literate is admitted with a diagnosis of acute angina. During the
Family members, at times, can be of great assistance, but then HIPPA comes into play. The patient may not want a particular family member to know about their health problems. The language barrier does inhibit sufficient care, and this should be addressed with the utmost of care and consideration for both the medical staff and patient.
Our visits to the emergency room, annual physicals, and checkups were often put on hold because of insurance issues, which lead to my family having negative health outcomes in the long run.
A.2) The united state health care system is the most expensive health care system around the world; this is why about 47 million people are without coverage because they cannot afford it. There many Americans’ who are in need and really need to see a physician, but refused to go see one because they don’t have insurance and they cannot pay such a high medical bill, so they would just not go while their medical condition is possible getting worse (PalFreman.J &
After the age of twenty-two I was no longer able to be on my mother’s health insurance and because I was not pregnant, I did not qualify for any type of state insurance. At this time I was working at a restaurant that did not offer health insurance, and was only making minimum wage. Being diagnosed with epilepsy the year before, I started looking at what I could find for private health insurance. Due to my epilepsy diagnoses, most insurance companies would not even talk to me, and the companies that did could only offer me plans that would cost me four hundred to six hundred dollars a month. I was only making around twelve hundred dollars a month, and I was not able to afford to pay that much money for health insurance. So instead of going to the doctors like I needed too, I only would only go to the ER when my health got bad.
Growing up in Haiti has strengthen my survival instinct at an early age. With barely enough to eat, we was dying one by one. Medicine and treatment was very rare for us. Imagine dying from a simple cold due to the fact that aspirin and cough medicine was foreign to us. I recall walking around wishing for better days or looking for ways to help. And I remember being told I was coming to America. America, the place where even the most impossible dreams come true. America, where education is free and very beneficial. Regardless of how young I was, I knew with every fiber in my little body that I would try my hardest to be successful in America. Unable to speak english, school become a challenge. But to all my teachers surprise it took me less
My family and I came to America in search of a better life. The journey was a long and dangerous, but in the end, it was better for my family and me. I am from the Congo of central Africa and at the time the country had begun to recover from the war, but life was harsh. Living conditions were bad. Food and water were scarce, and soldiers would roam the streets terrorizing innocent villagers. But the worst problems came from home.
Lack of doctors is only one facet to this multifaceted problem. Accessibility in terms of having the financial resources to obtain care is another. “Individuals in lower social status groups have the highest rates
From 1991 over one-sixth of Bhutan’s people flee their country and take a shelter in Nepal, India and other countries around the world. The large populations of Bhutanese refugee are called lhotshamps, an ethnic group, who were forced to leave their country in the early 1990s. Among 105,000 Bhutanese I’m one of them. I was born in a hut made of bamboo, food rations, and dirt roads. We are hostile, unsettled, unsure of who we are and what future held for us. I often think can we ever able to get rid out of the tag called “refugee” would my life ever changed, while ongoing tussled between mind and outside world finally in 2008 United States open a door for us to settled in the United States a “promised land” with full of struggle in 2009 we came here at Grand Forks. As I was growing up in the refugee camp I have seen a countless number of violence, crimes, injuries, and rebuff that words can’t be described. Most importantly death of people from a disease that can be a cure if, we have enough facilities such as, advanced medical training and hospitals. Although during my early childhood I have seen so much of maltreatment and practices, I always thought of having a career in health-related profession because I wanted to invest and improve the lives of individuals so that their children don't have to orphans, forced to work when their parent died, nor they have to beg for food. When I was 10 years old, my friend and I were trying to climb up the mango tree and I step in
My passion for global health stems from my experiences as a child. Growing up as a child of Mexican immigrants to the United States, I had the opportunity to visit family members in southern Mexico every few years. While I savored reconnecting with relatives, my awareness of inequalities bolstered with each visit. My relatives live in rural areas where economic adversity is persistent and access to quality healthcare is sparse. Contrasting my relatives’ experiences and opportunities with my own exemplified to me how one’s life is shaped by economic conditions, healthcare access, education systems, and one’s birthplace.
Even if patients cannot understand and make true choices, they have relatives such as family or spouse; hence, doctors can tell the truth to their relatives. Therefore, since doctors can simplify their explanations and patients’ family can make choices for them, doctors should always tell the truth.