Analyzing Australia's Healthcare System: Theories and Practices

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of the Australian healthcare system. It begins by discussing the system's structure, the government's strategies for improvement, and key concepts such as medicine, health, and healthcare. The core of the essay delves into various sociological theories, including functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism, to analyze their impact on healthcare. The functionalist perspective highlights the importance of a well-functioning society for effective medical care, while the conflict approach emphasizes inequalities in healthcare quality. The symbolic interactionist approach examines how illness and health are socially constructed. The essay explores these theories, providing insights into the relationships, social interactions, and behaviors within the Australian healthcare context.

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Running Head: Health Care
Health Care

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Introduction
Health care is a very decisive want of the people, thus it needs to be the major concerns of the
Australia government. In this essay, discuss the system of healthcare in Australia will get include
in. As same, the present nature or strategies fixed aside by the government of Australia for
improving the healthcare will also be taken place herein. The essay also includes the discussion
on the various sociological concepts or theories such as symbolic theory, conflict theory,
functionalism theory and etc. All these theories will greatly help in learning & evaluating the
relationships, social interactions, the behavior of the people in the country & etc.
Culture, structure & history of health care systems in Australia
As per the World Health Organisation, the health system includes various activities that aim &
missions to promote maintain & restore the health of all the individuals in an appropriate
manner. Including this, a perfect & excellent system contributes to providing the health care
appropriate to the various people whenever they require. At the time of arranging the services
differently from nation to nation, some of the common elements include the mechanism of strong
funding, reliable information from the base of the policies of decisions, qualified workforce,
properly maintained facilities or the strong possibilities of delivering the quality technologies &
medicines. These professionals are from both private & public sectors that perform altogether for
ensuring the good health & wealth to all the people of Australia (Adam, et. al., 2017).
The private sector is self-sponsored where they are able to serve for all their activities to the
people. On the other hand, the public sector is actually funded by the government of the state.
Before getting into the discussions of concept or theories there are various key concepts that
need to get well defined, such as- medicine, health & health care. Health refers to the meaning of

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the extent of a person’s mental, physical or social well being. It can also be said that health is the
multidimensional concept. Well, there are 3 different dimensions related to health which affects
each other. It can be possible for some people to be in poor mental health, good physical health
& vice versa. Medicine mainly means to the social institution which seeks to diagnose, prevent
or treat illness for promoting the health in various dimensions. In the United States, the social
institution is so vast for putting it mildly. It actually includes more than 12 million people such as
nurses, physicians, dentist, technicians of medical records, therapists or etc. At last, the health
care means to the provision of preventing, diagnosing & treating the health-related issues of
medical services. As there are various concept & theories related to the sociological perspectives
that provide the various types of explanation. As same it also contributes to the more
comprehensive understanding as well (Roberts, et. al., 2017).Some of those theories or concepts
related to the same are well discussed below-
Functionalism theory
It is very well known that functioning well of society is one of the most important factors for the
effective medical care & good health as well. Patients usually perform so sick for perceiving like
legitimately unhealthy or to be exempt from various obligations that are normal. The relationship
of physician or patient is hierarchical. As because the physician or practitioner is the one who
provides the instructions which need to get followed by the patient. The ill or poor health
actually impairs the ability of a person to perform their role in the entire society, or if various
folks are unhealthy, stability suffers & society’s functioning (Mozley, 2017). It is especially true
for the premature death as it prevents the people from completely carrying out all the social
rules. Thus, it presents the poor return to the entire society for various costs of birth, pregnancy,
child care or the socialization of the people who actually ends with dying up early. The people

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who have eating disorders all have to face various problems which are so hard to deal with. For
any of the person to get considered as the legitimately sick many of the expectations are
requiring to meet. It can get referred to the expectations of the sick role. First, the sick people
should not be actually perceived as own health issues. The eating disorder like having fast food
may cause as obese. It may also become the reason of heart attack and etc. (Hooker, et. al.,
2017).
It is very important to practice the good nutrition’s or maintaining the proper weight as well. It
can also be said that if any person is driving after drinking alcohol and smashes into the building
or wall, a less sympathy occurs then if that person had been normal skidded off. Second, it is true
that the person who is sick desires to get perfect soon. If any of the people do not want to get
well he or she perceives as faking their malingering & illness after becoming quite healthier.
Those people do not get considered as legitimately unhealthy by the people who recognize them
generally or by society too. Third, the sick people expect to confirm their illness by the
healthcare professionals, practitioner or physicians as well and needs to follow their instructions
for becoming well. If in case that sick person fails to follow the same, they lose their rights of
performing the sick role. The practitioner also plays a vital role in this. They require diagnosing
the illness of the person, deciding how to perform & helps the person so that he or she can
become well as soon as possible. They also require the operations of the patient at the same time.
The practitioner is required to perform by having the complete knowledge of the condition from
which a person is going through. A practitioner also needs to behave politely or accurately with
the patient so that he or she does not feel uncomfortable. On the other hand, practioner also
requires giving a proper time to the patient to make them understand each and everything very

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well. It helps the patient to know about their health status in a proper manner so that they can
focus on trying hard to become well (Anson, et. al., 2017).
The conflict Approach
This approach actually highlights the dissimilarity in the quality of the health & delivery of
health care as well. As experienced previously, the health & healthcare quality of the health
differs greatly across the world or in the United States as well. The society’s inequities along
ethnicity & race, gender lines, social class are actually reproduced in healthcare & health both.
The people who are from the backgrounds of social disadvantages are more likely to become
unhealthy or ill. Once they become unhealthy the inadequate health care makes it much more
difficult for them to become well (Adams, et. al., 2017).
This approach of conflict critiques the various efforts by the practitioner over many of the
decades for controlling the practices of medicines and as same as for defining the social issues
like medical ones. The motivation of practioner to perform this has both good & bad impact. In
the positive side, they believe that they are a qualified practitioner to resolve or diagnose the
problems or to treat people who are having these issues. On the other hand, at the negative side,
they recognize that if they will get success in characterizing the social, medical problems or in
monopolizing the treatment of these problems their financial status will get improved. There are
various examples which illustrate the critical theory of conflict. It is well known that alternative
medicine is taking place nowadays but as there are critics of it by the medical treatment. The
practitioner may feel that alternative medicines are ineffective, inadequate or dangerous but at
the same time, they also accept that using those alternative medicines may get prove as very
harmful for their own practices. Some of the eating disorders also illustrate the theory of conflict.
Most of the girls or women are there who faces eating disorders & gets help from the

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psychiatrists, physicians, healthcare professionals & psychologists as well. This care is very
helpful. Many of the professionals who treat the eating disorders get a very good source of
income (Platzer, 2017).
On the other hand, another example is obstetrical care. In the human history, midwives were the
people who greatly helped the women who were pregnant in delivering their babies. At the time
of 19th century, the physicians claimed that they are better educated than midwives for
performing this care. They won the legislation of delivering the babies. Though they were sure
that midwives were not trained well at the same time, they also accepted that the obstetrical care
would be bit lucrative. According to the critic, the conflict approach assessment of medicine or
health is overly disturbed & the critics of the physician's motivation are so cynical. The
medicines of the scientist have greatly helped the people in improving their health around the
entire world (Williams, 2017).
Though practioner are specifically motivated or encouraged as many of the people are, but by
the considerations of economic, their efforts to enlarge their scope in the areas of nonmedical
also stem from the various honest beliefs that the health and life of people will surely get
improved. There is some reality in the criticism of the approach of conflict, but the proof of
inequality in medicine or health of the negative aspects of the medical institution motivation for
extending its approach remains compelling. Being a health practitioner it impacts positively, as it
provided ways to perform great & prove much more trained as well. Providing the best health
care to the people help with more effective ways to perform efficiently (Spurgeon, 2017).
The Symbolic Interactionist Approach
This approach or concept explains that illness & health are the social constructions. It actually
means that many of the mental or physical conditions have some of no reality but still they get

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considered as ill or healthy conditions & just like same they get defined by the members of
society as well. The symbolic Interactionist approach or concept provides the various important
knowledge if the interaction between the professionals of health cares & patients. Consciously or
unconsciously the practitioner manages the situations for displaying their authority & medical
knowledge as well. Patients mostly have to wait for long time for the practitioner to show their
issues (Holland, 2017).
The physician in a white coat gets known as Doctor. Patients mostly call them by their name.
The physicians or practitioner typically uses the terms of the medical complex for describing the
illness of the patient instead of more simple terms that get used by the ill people or the survivor
themselves. For example of this approach- as an effort for redefining the obesity is now on the
way in the United States, the obesity gets considers as the health risk. The fat pride & fact
acceptance faction composed of highly individuals are arguing that the health risks of the obesity
are immensely exaggerated & calling attention to the discrimination of the society against the
overweight people. Though such discrimination is a fortune, critic’s state the movement is
moving so far for trying to minimize the risks that are related to the obesity. Critics mistake the
symbolic Interactionist approach for implying that no illness includes the purpose of reality.
Most of the serious health issues do exist or put the patients at risk related to their health. At the
same time critic also says that this approach neglects all the effects or impacts on social
inequality for the illness and health both. Regardless of these possible faults, the symbolic
Interactionist approach actually reminds that illness and health to include the objective or
subjective reality within (Kingma, 2018).

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Conclusion
In this essay of health care the evaluation of the implications of the concepts & theories to the
system of healthcare has evaluated. Some of the major lessons which get implied to the health
care system from sociological theory have also taken place herein. It has included a
comprehensive report about the various researchers that presents the situation of health services
& systems. On the other hand, many of those issues which play a crucial role in health issues
have also discussed in this essay with the best solutions & opinions to improve them. As same
impacts of these on the practitioner & their responsibilities has also described very well herein.

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