Managing Chronic Disorders: Importance of Primary Healthcare Services

This article discusses the burden of chronic disorders worldwide and in Australia. It highlights the importance of tackling social determinants of health and well-being through primary healthcare services. The article also explains the responsibilities of nursing professionals in ensuring health equity and social justice for all patients.

Running head: PRIMARY HEALTHCARE SERVICES
PRIMARY HEALTHCARE SERVICES
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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The World Health Organization is of the opinion that burden of the chronic disorder is
increasing worldwide. It has been calculated that in the year of 2001, chronic disorders and
contributed to about 60% of the 56.5 million of the deaths that had taken place. It also led to
about 46% of the global burden of the diseases (Azzarito et al., 2017). They have also stated that
by the year 2020, the proportion of the chronic disorders would be increasing to 57%. According
to self-reporting of disorders in the year 2014 to 2015 in Australia, it is seen that about one in
every two Australians accounting to about 50% suffer with at least one prominent chronic
disorder. 2014-15 National Health Survey data is also of the opinion that nearly a quarter portion
of the people have three in every 5 people for about 60% of the older people have two or more
chronic conditions (Whitty & Littlejohns, 2015). Researchers are of the opinion that about a third
of the burden experienced by the nation of Australia can be prevented by reduction of the
exposure of the modifiable risk factors that mainly include biomedical as well as behavioral risk
factors (Richard et al., 2016). This assignment will be discussed on the health issue of chronic
disorders in the nation and will show how a particular strategy implied in the healthcare policies
of the nation would be helping in managing the health issue successfully.
One of the key strategy that is mostly incorporated in the healthcare policies in the
present generation in the nation is the “taking of actions helping in tackling the social
determinants of health and well being of patients with specific importance being put on health
promotion, screening, prevention and early intervention”. This is present under the “NATIONAL
PRIMARY HEALTH CARE STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK” published in 2013 by the
Commonwealth of Australia in 2013. The first important part is the identification of the ways for
addressing the social determinants of health. The primary healthcare nurses should be
considering the social status, health literacy, geographic location, housing, education, and

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employment as well as access opportunities of the patients towards the health services that lead
to poor health (Dukhanin et al., 2018). Following the principles of primary healthcare set by
WHO the healthcare policies of the nation thereby instruct the healthcare professionals working
in primary care domains to target known lifestyle related risk factors like that of the high level of
alcohol consumption, exposure to sun, physical inactivity, smoking, poor diet, nutrition as well
as unsafe sexual practices. The strategies also ask the professionals to undertake researches and
conduct evaluation for the identification of the best use of the new technologies. They should
also enable increasing use of home based monitoring as well as treatment and support.
The above mentioned responsibilities of the primary healthcare nurses are performed in a
way that align with the primary healthcare services that had been developed by WHO. The
nurses should be responsible for ensuring universal access to care as well as coverage based on
the requirements and needs of the students. They should commit themselves for the maintenance
of the equity as a significant part of the development oriented to social justice. They should
ensure community participation in the defining as well as implementing healthcare agendas.
They should also ensure intersectoral approaches for health (Griffith et al., 2016).
The nursing professionals have huge roles in ensuring health equity as well as handling
social justice in ways by which chronic disorder prevalence in the nation gradually decreases.
Prevalence, mortality, risk factors, morbidity, age, sex, race, ethnicity, income, employment and
many others are the epidemiological factors that differ among different people in different
regions of the nation. Researchers are of the opinion that health equity is important ensuring that
every people in the nation have equal opportunity for living a long and healthy life (Sunderland
et al., 2018). Health should never be compromised because of an individual’s or populations’
group race, ethnicity, income, gender, sexual orientation, social condition. Different people in the

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society belong to the different socioeconomic classes and do not have same level of employment,
education, housing, and many others. Therefore, these should never be the cause of
inaccessibility or issues for failure to get the healthcare treatments from the primary healthcare
centers. This can be explained with the help of several examples. The richer section of the
society can easily access the primary healthcare organizations and are able to carry on the costly
treatment of many chronic disorders as they have higher financial security, better employment
and higher income. In comparison to that, people coming from the low socio-economic
background face greater difficulties in managing the cost of the treatment, medications and other
interventions that remain associated with it. in such situation, healthcare professionals have
specific responsibilities to ensure health equity and social justice by undertaking certain roles
(McMurray & Clendon, 2015).
The nursing professionals should ensure accessibility of all people irrespective of their
background making sure that the primary care services that are available, affordable and
provided equally to all irrespective of their gender, ethnicity or location. They should also ensure
public or community participation mainly involving all resources of the community helping in
the promotion of the health and addressing of the health problems at the grass root levels. The
professionals should be teaching how the community can take ownership for the health as well as
wellness of the people. They can conduct health promotion for the people who do not have
proper health literacy or education background to know about the impacts of their behavior on
health. They can help such communities for strengthening the socio-economic conditions for
contributing to good health (Carey, Crammond & De Leeuw, 2015). They should be ensuring
appropriate utilization of technology. They should be also advocating of and collaborating with
different intersectoral collaboration. They have the responsibility to recognize that the health

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and well-being of the community does not solely depend on the effective healthcare services but
also Governments, businesses and organizations in other sectors are equally responsible in the
promotion of the health and self-reliance of the communities. All these would help in controlling
the occurrence of chronic disorders by ensuring effective handling of equity and social justice in
the nation.
From the above discussion, it becomes clear that chronic disorders are one of the most
concerning health issues in the nation. Healthcare policies have therefore taken up one of the key
strategies for handling such concern is the tackling of the social determinants of health for
reduction of the burden of the chronic disorders. Following the key principles of primary
healthcare set by WHO, nurses need to maintain equity and social justice through their
interventions ensuring that all people het equal access to care. They need to take actions that
would help all people overcome health disorders and live better quality lives.

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