The gap in healthcare between rural and urban areas
Discuss about the Lack Of Medical Resources In Rural Areas.
Australian health care has significantly improved in the last decade. However, the people living in remote and rural areas are suffering more often with illness. The gap in the health care is attributed to the lack of medical resources in the rural areas.
People in rural areas wait longer to see doctors, when compared to urban city counterparts. As per the reports from the Council of Australian Governments reform council, there is less incentives given to the medical specialists to move to the rural areas. In rural areas there are only 135 doctors per 100,000, in compared to the 335 in the urban cities (Wakerman et al., 2017).
People in rural areas have high prevalence of chronic diseases and they lack access to the primary health care services such as general practioners who can treat patents on emergency conditions. In addition to shortage of physicians, other healthcare professionals, other factors for lack of medical resources are geographical barriers. There are less number of health care facilities in rural areas and often provided limited services. It is because of extreme weather conditions, and poor transportation. It increases the response time by the emergency medical professionals as well as ambulatory services (Wakerman et al., 2017).
Economists and the investors mainly invest in the health care sectors in urban areas as it is not highly profitable in rural areas. Therefore, there are primary health care services without the lab technicians and pharmacists. On the other hand people in rural areas prefer to be treated in the local environment, especially the Indigenous community. In addition, there is lack of adequate funding and infrastructure to support the medical facilities in rural areas. Rural people also lack adequate Medicaid coverage. It contributes to inadequate supply of drugs, counselling and screening services (Dawson, Nkowane & Whelan, 2015).
These stark findings brings into realisation that the principle of the common good is not promoting the health equalities among people of rural areas. Common good refers to the social well being of people that allows them to reach their fulfilment easily (Strömgren et al., 2016). There is lack of shared responsibility in addressing this issue of common good. From the nursing perspective, there is need of high attention considering the increasing mortality and morbidity in rural areas due to chronic illness.
Nurses can help reduce the barriers to access the medical facilities in rural areas by staying committed to health equity, beneficence and social justice. The nurses must be accounted for the community needs and resources. It will help set priority and direct the limited medical resources to the most important areas (Bradford et al., 2016). Nurses may collaborate with the physician, governmental and non-governmental organisations to choose the right program and policies for the rural communities. Nurse may implement the evidence based program to rural medical care.
Factors contributing to the shortage of medical resources
Nurses and other providers may bring change in the rural health care services by focusing on the policy, systems and environmental programs for substantial improvement over time. In this process the nurse may engage a variety of stakeholders including community members and partners. Nurses may collaborate with urban health care centres to hold national workshops for the policy makers to address the issue of the access, shortage of the medical professionals, and improve the role of the communities in the designing the health care delivery systems (Wakerman et al., 2017).
To establish the health equity, the nurse may work with the Council of Australian Governments reform council, to finance essential rural medical services. The providers may highlight the government through social media pages and online surveys about the impact of rural hospital closures for rural Medicare populations. The rural health care may collaborate with different health care organisations to address barriers in delivering necessary vaccinations to children. Increased focus on telehealth will help overcome the geographical barriers (Humphreys et al., 2017).
Adopting the collaborative care model in academic medical centres, will help expand the knowledge of the local providers. It will increase the linkage between the rural and urban medical centres. Improving the funding will increase the medical care facilities (Roden et al., 2015). It is distracting to lack stable funding. Moreover, many of the medical benefits and supply of resources rely on grant funding as well as revenue from contracts.
In rural areas lack of medical resources is affecting the common good of people. It is the global issue as across the world, there are many countries like America, Australia, and India where rural areas lack adequate medical resources. This can be considered as factor that greatly differentiates the developing and developed countries. Even in countries where the majority of the population are living in the rural areas there is lack of the adequate medical resources for the people suffering from chronic illnesses. These resources are mainly concentrated in big cities (Roden et al., 2015). It can be said that the shared responsibility of the common good is lacking in this matter.
Both the old and the new literature highlight about all the countries having the challenge of shortage of doctors and emergency medical services in rural areas. These areas also have the communication, poverty and transportation issues in rural areas. Even though multilateral institutions like United Nations and World Health Organisation, are taking efforts to minimise the global health problems, they are failing in adequate distribution of resources in both urban and rural areas. There is greater focus on raising money, instead of better use of resources. It is due to lack of basic health care providers in rural areas, as well as nurses, scarcity of life saving treatments, it is difficult for the people to access medical services (De Andrade et al., 2015).
Need for a more specific approach to healthcare planning for rural areas
There is lack of realisation of common good. It is evident from the limited funding and other resource constraints that is affecting the availability of adequate medical resources in rural areas in developing countries. Even in several developed countries there is decrease in medical infrastructure support and the funding in rural areas. It is also partly the outcome of the economic rationalist policies. Several rural communities bear the cost of the global change despite no commensurate benefits. Due to lack of infrastructure, there is shortage of doctors having necessary skills and efficiency. Only if the specialist support is available the sustainability of the services in rural areas is ensured. It is can be concluded that the development of the health services and its delivery in rural areas is not specific to rural context. There is lack of realisation that the modified urban health services cannot be transplanted to rural areas and do not consider human right to health (Kenny, Farmer, Dickson?Swift & Hyett, 2015).
Considering the mortality and morbidity pattern in rural areas across the world, it is recommended that the health care services are developed that are more specific to the rural context. The health care planners must realise that the country is not just like the city. In addition to different population distribution, there is also difference in the cultures. To achieve the highest possible level of health is the important worldwide social goal. Health is the fundamental human right. Therefore, the government must realise the common good that is the sum of the physical, mental and social well being of the people. There are several ways that will help reduce this issue and are discussed in this section.
Government must fulfil the health and social needs of the rural patients by improving the primary health care services, and maintaing the social justice (Smalls et al., 2018). The primary health care has the potential to address the main community health problems. There is a need of harnessing the collective power of community partners, rural health care providers, and local leaders. The key to change is the engagement of variety of stakeholders. The government together with the rural health care practioners must come up with the strategies for effective implementation of the telehealth and other communication information technology. It will help overcome the geographical barriers. Telemedicine in many countries has been found to transform the rural health care. It increases quality and decreases time it takes rural patients to receive care, particularly specialty care. It reduces unnecessary visits to emergency department. It promotes remote consultation, and outsourced diagnostic analysis. It is cheaper than the traditional healthcare appointments. It is the best way to attract the urban doctors to rural health setting. There is a need to eliminate the issue of the broadband infrastructure. Remote consultation by video conferencing has benefits but it is limited to wireless connections. Using technology in new ways may also help rural patients. Social workers, nurses and other filed workers may use cameras to photograph the patients with certain diseases to send to experienced doctors. It will help receive advice and emergency care (Kakkar, Naushad & Khatri, 2017). Integrating the telemedicine with the electronic health record will make the best use of the emergency healthcare situation. Mobile integrated health care and community paramedicine helps in the reducing the issue of rural health care infrastructure (Choi, Blumberg & Williams, 2016).
Importance of social well-being and health equity
Establishing other supportive systems for transferring patients especially elderly and those with disability to and from hospitals. The government must choose right policies for rural community health to increases resources based on pressing health need. Environmental changes must also be taken into considerations while implementing health programs systematically. It will help improve medical facilities substantially. Environmental factors must also be considered as even if the resources are in place the lack of basic infrastructure like roads, and power prevent effective installation of health care resources (Smalls et al., 2018). The government must play an active role in increasing the community support centres. According to Wakerman et al. (2017) people with strong social support and access to resources have healthier life. Counselling, support groups and rehabilitation must be concentrated more in rural areas. It will address the issue of the alcohol, diet and exercise, and tobacco use. The community support centres will help in increasing the access to high quality care and affordable care. The providers in affordable care must be in close proximity to patient.
Nurse Practioners must be motivated and trained to serve in rural areas. They must be provided with adequate incentives and facilities such as living arrangements to work with triage population to identify patients who need to travel a long distance to access hospital or doctor (Humphreys et al., 2017). Various health promotion programs and awareness campaigns may help people live healthy. Nurse can play the advocacy role during patient visits and through campaigns. The patients in the rural areas may be provided with strict health related guidelines. It may include nurses and the rural health care providers scheduling the health screening very year even without health insurance. The government should formulate policies not to refuse care in absence of Medicare coverage (Alley et al., 2016). Economic challenges must be considered. If more number of people in rural areas is living below poverty line, the health budget turns to be miniscule. Further health organisations working without licences and coordination must be eliminated as it impedes access to adequate medical resources from urban cities (Chen, Yin & Xie, 2014). Countries like China are trying to develop private insurance markets to decrease the financial ruin. It will help people from the poor background to survive the expensive treatments. It is necessary to engage the private sector in sustainable solutions. Such public and private partnerships will help improve health in rural areas globally (hen, Yin & Xie, 2014)).
Recommendations to improve medical resources in rural areas
It can be concluded that lack of medical resources is a global health issue, and is associated with the political, environmental, economic and social factors. The issue is responsible for mortality and morbidity in rural areas. The essay has discussed various ways in which this issue could be resolved. There is need of combine efforts from governmental and nongovernmental organisations.
References
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Alley, D. E., Asomugha, C. N., Conway, P. H., & Sanghavi, D. M. (2016). Accountable health communities—addressing social needs through Medicare and Medicaid. N Engl J Med, 374(1), 8-11.
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