Exploring Healthcare Access Barriers for Vulnerable Addiction Groups

This essay delves into the significant challenges marginalized groups face in accessing quality healthcare, particularly those struggling with addiction or substance abuse. It identifies several key factors that impede access, including poverty, which limits the ability to afford expensive healthcare services; lack of peer support, which discourages seeking medical attention; age-related perceptions, where younger individuals may dismiss addiction, and older individuals may not prioritize healthcare; high illiteracy levels, leading to a lack of awareness and understanding of addiction; stigmatization, causing reluctance to seek help due to societal judgment; and inadequate healthcare centers and programs in marginalized communities. The essay emphasizes the need to address these barriers to improve healthcare access and outcomes for vulnerable populations. This essay is available on Desklib, a platform providing students with valuable study resources.

Running Head: WORKING WITH DIVERSITY
WORKING WITH DIVERSITY
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Introduction
Health care access has never been a walk in the park for vulnerable groups in various
societies, especially the marginalized people addicted to gambling drugs or substance abuse.
Marginalized here may mean those groups that are sidelined from the mainstream of the society's
control of power and distribution of resources.
Several factors may affect the quality of healthcare given to these groups or their access
to the health system. They include;
Poverty
Poverty as well may affect the quality of health care given to the victims of addiction in
marginalized groups since they cannot afford to cater to the expensive healthcare services
(Derose, Escarce, & Lurie, 2017). This might be brought about by the fact that they use most of
their resources in gambling or in the purchase of their drugs.
Lack of peer support
People addicted to drug abuse or gambling lack motivation from their fellows or
immediate community to seek medical attention. This affects their perspective on the need for
specialized healthcare support. Some believe that their addiction levels are beyond redemption,
thus finding it unnecessary to seek medical help (Opie, 2017).
Age
The age might also deter the victims from seeking medical attention. For young people,
they believe that their addiction is a passive stage in their youthful years, and it might disappear

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naturally as they age without medical attention (Smye & Browne, 2013). The aged find no need
to ‘waste’ their resources in healthcare since they believe that their days are over.
High illiteracy level.
In most marginalized communities, the addicted population is mainly composed of uneducated
members of the under learned ones; thus, they lack the knowledge even to acknowledge that they
are addicted, and their addiction might attract medical attention.
Illiteracy is also associated with unemployment or poor wages. The low-income population is
mostly associated with substance abuse, drunkenness, and gambling to addiction and social
disorderliness (Opie, 2017). Where social order is lacking, presumably, healthcare facilities will
be minimal or of low standards.
Stigmatization
Those suffering from addictions may be reluctant to seek medical attention due to
stigmatization by the community, or a perceived feeling of being sidelined by the society
(Derose, Escarce, & Lurie, 2017). They live to believe that the nation can never offer them
anything good since they have no power in resource allocation, and their contribution to the
development of the community is minimal and ignored. They also lack sensitization and
inadequate awareness about the dangers of not seeking medical care.
Inadequate healthcare centers ad programs.
Marginalized groups mostly occupy the remote parts of the country, which are
characterized by deprived infrastructural developments and poor social amenities. The medical
centers available in their neighborhoods lack trained staff to cater for addiction victims.

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Conclusion
Addiction victims among the marginalized and vulnerable groups always have limited
access to quality medical support and health care services. This may result from personal factors
which prevent them from accessing quality medical attention, or from external factors which are
beyond their control while others are tamable.

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References
Derose, K. P., Escarce, J. J., & Lurie, N. (2017). Immigrants and health care: sources of
vulnerability. Health Affairs,, 26(5), 1258-1268.
O’Mahony, J., M., & Donnelly, T. T. (2017). A postcolonial feminist perspective inquiry into
immigrant women’s mental health care experiences. Issues in Mental Health Nursing,
31(7), 440-449.
Opie, A. (2017). Thinking teams thinking clients: issues of discourse and representation in the
work of health care teams. Sociology of Health & Illness, 19(3), 259-280.
Smye, V., & Browne, A. (2013). Cultural safety' and the analysis of health policy affecting
aboriginal people. Nurse Researcher, 9(3), 42.