Healthcare Access and Human Dignity: A Nursing Perspective

This essay, written from a nursing perspective, addresses the critical issue of improving access to health centers and hospitals, particularly in the context of the United States. The author, drawing from personal experience and research, highlights the challenges of healthcare access, emphasizing the impact of privatization, inequality, and the violation of human dignity. The essay explores the importance of human dignity in nursing practice, citing relevant research and the principles of Catholic Social Teaching. The author argues for the need to prioritize the needs of the poor and vulnerable, combat racism, and promote community involvement to realize the common good. The essay concludes with the author's commitment to advocating for improved healthcare access and upholding human dignity in their nursing career, emphasizing the importance of respecting life and providing care to all individuals regardless of their social status. The author also emphasizes the importance of community participation and solidarity in ensuring the best possible healthcare services for everyone.

Opinion Editorial
Not improving access to health centers or hospitals

I have been always fascinated about my field of interest that is nursing as this profession
provides me the opportunity to care for people in need of professional health care services. From
my experience what I have realised is that the concept of universally funded public healthcare
system is not widely accepted by a school of thought and are constantly forcing the system to get
privatised which has happened in many parts of the United States and this has led to the
improper improvement of access to healthcare for many people. According to Jacobs (2016)
access to health centers and hospitals is still a major issue in different parts of the world. Even
when the developed nations have brought in number of policies to ensure the access to healthcare
is equal and in line with the human rights the practical result has shown differently most of the
time especially in the USA. Human Dignity has always been an important aspect in the field of
healthcare and most of the healthcare centers try to apply the elements of human dignity in order
to provide the best possible services to the care users, however, it has been seen in number of
occasions that health centers are not able to completely comply with the human dignity factors
that ultimately affect another principle of realisation of common good (Stievano et al. 2012).
As a healthcare professional one should always focus on improving the system of service
provided to the care users but as there is no improvement of access to the healthcare centers of
hospitals there has been a significant breach in the human dignity. Numminen, Repo and Leino
Kilpi (2017) states that the human dignity guides people to act in a way that is reasonable for
every human being giving respect and treating everyone equally and this has always been my
primary motto (Lin, 2013). I have been able to do a fair amount of research on the subject of
human dignity and realisation of common good that clearly shows that in the field of nursing
human dignity is considered imperative especially during practice which means it is important
for me to respect and treat every individual in a particular manner that would help to provide
services to all (Sabatino et al. 2014).
However, I have seen that there are still elements of racism and cast issues present in the
healthcare system that doesn’t allow human dignity to play a crucial part in imparting treatment
to the patients. This has also helped me to realise the core issues related to improper access to
hospitals and healthcare setups which are the deprivation of the poor and vulnerable, racism,
inequality in access to healthcare et cetera which I feel could be handled with the principles of

Catholic Social Teaching system that would also help to realise common good (Sabatino et al.
2014).
From my personal experience I have seen that the poor and vulnerable have suffered in getting
access to proper healthcare service which is a significant hit on the concept of human dignity and
showed that money is still considered superior in this scenario being a catholic I would try to
implement the CST Principle of imparting treatment to the needy and the poor through the
participation of the community and families and other bodies which would not only help to keep
their human dignity intact but will also help to realise the common good (Lin, 2013). As a
nursing professional my sole priority is caring for people irrespective of their social status and
calling everyone to participate in the welfare of the society would definitely make the work
easier. I understand that human dignity is a moral obligation for the healthcare professionals
thus, it is extremely important to make sure each and every person is treated individually and
respected which would happen through moral understanding of the job and society (Mfutso-
Bengo, Bukusi and Mfutso-Bengo, 2018).
At my workplace I would constantly communicate with patients and organise camps to provide
healthcare services to the needy and follow the principle of solidarity by bringing more like
minded people in the picture in order to get the best possible services from them. As satted by
Tasioulas and Vayena (2016) respecting life should be the priority of every healthcare employee
and doing the best for life is my priority too. In this scenario I would invest my time in taking
care of backward community and influencing more and more individuals to contribute towards
providing possible access of healthcare to people which would definitely be the best possible
way to realise common good.

References
Jacobs, B.B., 2016. Respect for human dignity in nursing: Philosophical and practical
perspectives. Canadian Journal of Nursing Research Archive, 32(2).
Mfutso-Bengo, J., Bukusi, E. and Mfutso-Bengo, E., 2018. Public Health Ethics and Rights in
Healthcare Programmes. In African Perspectives on Ethics for Healthcare
Professionals (pp. 215-234). Springer, Cham.
Numminen, O., Repo, H. and Leino-Kilpi, H., 2017. Moral courage in nursing: A concept
analysis. Nursing ethics, 24(8), pp.878-891.
Tasioulas, J. and Vayena, E., 2016. The place of human rights and the common good in global
health policy. Theoretical medicine and bioethics, 37(4), pp.365-382.
Stievano, A., Marinis, M.G.D., Russo, M.T., Rocco, G. and Alvaro, R., 2012. Professional
dignity in nursing in clinical and community workplaces. Nursing ethics, 19(3), pp.341-
356.
Sabatino, L., Stievano, A., Rocco, G., Kallio, H., Pietila, A.M. and Kangasniemi, M.K., 2014.
The dignity of the nursing profession: a meta-synthesis of qualitative research. Nursing
ethics, 21(6), pp.659-672.
Lin, Y.P., Watson, R. and Tsai, Y.F., 2013. Dignity in care in the clinical setting: a narrative
review. Nursing ethics, 20(2), pp.168-177.