Analysis of Health and Socio-Political Issues in Aged Care - Colombia

This report examines the health and socio-political issues affecting aged care in Colombia, focusing on primary health care delivery. It highlights the challenges in implementing effective primary health care for the elderly, including organizational failures within communities, coordination problems, inadequate resources, segmentation of the health system, medical service violations, and manpower shortages. The report also touches on the impact of poor nutrition on the effectiveness of primary health care. Despite these challenges, the report acknowledges the positive contributions of primary health care in reducing health disparities and recommends that other countries learn from Colombia's experiences by involving various stakeholders in the process. The report concludes that Colombia still requires significant efforts to ensure the proper functioning of primary health care services for its aging population. Desklib provides access to this and other solved assignments for students.

Running head: HEALTH AND SOCIO-POLITICAL ISSUES IN AGED CARE 1
Health And Socio-Political Issues In Aged Care
Name
Institutional Affiliation

HEALTH AND SOCIO-POLITICAL ISSUES IN AGED CARE 2
Introduction
Currently, there are close to six hundred million people who are sixty years and above in
the whole world. Statistics project that seven years down the line the number is likely to
double and in essence two billion come the year 2050 (Kooienga &Carryer 2015). Primary
health care is among the key principles for health care services delivery in a country's local
level of the health system.
When there is a deviation from the normal functioning of the body, a patient is normally
required to seek primary health care. Primary health care refers to the first encounter
someone has with the health care system when they are ill or health condition that does not
require urgent attention.
Primary health care aims beyond service provision by clinics through improved first
prevention in older people aid in the promotion of health. The Republic of Colombia in the
year 2011 experienced a remarkable change in her primary health care through the adoption
of a standard approach.
To begin with, eight communities from Cundinamarca and Bogota, Colombia went
through a series of interventions to aid in campaigns of increasing public awareness in order
to induce a state of well-being. Some of the activities that were spearheaded by this campaign
included, giving leaders in the community a chance to take part in training to boost
implementation of health initiatives so as to curb puzzling circumstances scrutinized by their

HEALTH AND SOCIO-POLITICAL ISSUES IN AGED CARE 3
organizations. Twenty-seven commanders who participated managed to successfully
complete the training process.
A lot of people prefer primary health care and it can be made available by, a family doctor,
massager or a pharmaceutical chemist (Devy et al. 2015). Primary Health Care for the elderly
include the following practices: prevention of health-related complications, good health
promotion, medical care for people with illness, premature intervention and controlling
continuing and persistent health conditions (Bitton et al. 2017).
Body
Colombia is among the countries in the world where primary health care for the old has
been upheld. Some of the ways through which care has been provided to the elderly using
Primary Health Care and factors that have enabled its implementation include the following:
Help from hospital managers and local mayors, organizations within the community, the
dedication of health workers and health care teams, proper coordination, and prolonged
political stability within the country. However, the above-mentioned enablers had a massive
failure due to the factors that have been illustrated below,
Organizations within the community
Despite communities being active historically and well organized (Aguirre-Duarte 2015)in
participation, many of the participants were self-centered and mostly served interests of their
commanders, persuaded by other institutions within the district or a group of people
constituting a particular side in legal action.

HEALTH AND SOCIO-POLITICAL ISSUES IN AGED CARE 4
Sources reveal that home medical management members deserted some of the
communities’ collective objectives when it came to their attention that it was possible for
them to obtain personal benefits.
On the other hand, the community members realized that there was no unity in the process
of decision-making. Lack of unity within members in the meetings made other communities
feel like they were being looked down upon. In instances where politicians and community
members were speaking the same language in terms of interest, taking part together served as
a way legalizing the activities; nevertheless, during instances where different interests could
arise, discrete interests of specific political sides carried the day. The consequence of this is a
broken and non-functional primary health care for the elderly in Colombia.
Challenge in coordination.
Previously, there existed well-developed coordination within Primary Health Care in
Colombia (Bentley, Minstrell, Bucher, Sproule, Robinson & Stirling, 2015). This could have
ensured success and further spread of the program to many other cities within the country but
the stalemate brought about by the members weakened it. Initially, a decision was made that
all stakeholders ought to occasional joint meetings to scrutinize desires and come up with
common goals. Nonetheless, some organizations ignored the importance of joint action, did
not have enough staff to attend meetings led and promoted by the sick house. This led to a
big setback since failure to involve all stakeholders at a topical level prevented the ability to
come up with exhaustive response to help curb and provide a solution to wants
Inadequate reliable resources

HEALTH AND SOCIO-POLITICAL ISSUES IN AGED CARE 5
Management level officials also revealed that the lack of financial sustainability of the
health centers was a great challenge in the delivery of primary health care in Colombia
(Palumbo 2016). It was assumed that hospitals were to fully be responsible for financing all
the experts who had the obligation of delivering health care services. In the last 10 years,
most hospitals faced financial instability not only making it tough to independently run their
activities but also paralyzing funding of the hired experts due to lack of additional resources.
Twelve years ago, Primary Health Carelost its key role after it was banished from its
position in district health policy to take part in operations pertaining daily life of PSHQL
strategy. This strategy was economically implicated since it resulted in reduced annual
budgets for quite a long period of time. Mayors in some regions made up their mind and
decided to suspend money allocation that was initially used to support the home healthcare
programme.
GSSSH segmentation and fragmentation
Among the key impediments to public health care realization was structural factors
affiliated to the national health system(Schmidt et al. 2015) DHS staff perceived that, reduced
role of the state (for instance delivery of healthcare services, stewardship and allocation of
money), division of actions as well as fragmentation of roles brought forth a policy in the
district health that restricted its power to manipulate or control interconnect facilities of first-
level public health care.
The structural challenges were confirmed by home health care team members, arguing that
combination of private-public insurers and providers together with the controlled contest
scheme signified that private and public institutions contend emulously for resources,
therefore disregarding needs of the elderly in the community.

HEALTH AND SOCIO-POLITICAL ISSUES IN AGED CARE 6
Fragmentation and segmentation of care were caused by insurance schemes that had
distinct benefit packages.
Medical services violation
The challenge of access to better medical services is common in Colombia. It has led
to reduction in efficiency of the health facilities and poor delivery by the health personnel in
charge. Incidents of attacks and intimidations on facilities and health care officials commonly
referred to as ‘'Medical Mission'' has been on the rise in Colombia since the year 2012. A
humanitarian independent organization in Colombia known as International Committee of
Red Cross which plays a key role in ensuring the dignity of war victims, protection of lives
and assistance provision recorded 75 instances of violation which hampered primary health
care(Novella & Centeno 2015). activities. Impacts of these attacks on the community have
greatly increased their gravity. Transgressions of medical officials and medical facilities have
greatly lowered the accessibility of health care services to millions of old people in the
community.
Availability of high manpower
For any sector to flourish, adequate and reliable manpower is always needed. However, in
Colombia, another factor affecting PHC delivery is the regulation of the labour market by
national policies. Effects of this are the scarcity of trainees to take part in the health care
workforce Godoy Benz and Scenna 2015). Challenges facing the workers include poor
conditions at places of work, e.g. agreements between the workers and government which
lacks insurance. PHC members confirmed that some of the well-trained staff members are
transferred to some other jobs further worsening the situation.

HEALTH AND SOCIO-POLITICAL ISSUES IN AGED CARE 7
The heart of the problem under this section is reduced budgeting for investing in training.
A lot of people have been discouraged by this, as a result, abandoning PHC for the elderly
within the community.
Nutrition
Nutrition is the process of being nourished and the ability of the body to assimilate food
and make use of it for growth and maintenance(Parra et al.2015). According to the National
Plan for Feeding, 30% of Colombia's population has been affected by poor nutrition.
Application of primary health care in the absence of proper nutrition has largely reduced its
effectiveness.
Conclusion
The illustrations above show, what primary health care for old people entails, its benefits,
some of the efforts made by the Colombian government to ensure improved primary health
care and widely discuss some of the barriers to the implementation process.
Some of the impediments to realization of proper primary health care to the old included:
failed organization within the community, challenges in coordination, inadequate reliable
resources, GSSSH segmentation and fragmentation, and high manpower availability.
Despite the challenges experienced in the delivery of primary health care for the old, it is
important to appreciate that PHC has not only greatly aided in making Colombia’s health
sector able to be seen but also reduced disparities related to health.
Experiences of Colombia has strongly recommended other countries never to overlook
Primary health care for the old by effectively involving different stakeholders. Colombia still

HEALTH AND SOCIO-POLITICAL ISSUES IN AGED CARE 8
requires numerous efforts to ensure proper running of Primary Health Care services in the
country.

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