Nursing Assignment 1: Lack of Medical Resources in Rural Areas

This nursing assignment report explores the significant challenges faced by healthcare providers in rural areas, primarily focusing on the lack of medical resources. It attributes these shortages to a combination of economic, social, cultural, educational, and geographic factors, leading to health disparities and hindering the well-being of rural populations. The report identifies key challenges such as workforce shortages, socioeconomic disparities, health inequities, and geographic limitations. It then proposes strategies to improve the situation, including enhancing staffing, integrating telehealth services to overcome geographic barriers, addressing social determinants of health through community needs assessments and stakeholder engagement, and improving education and employment opportunities in rural areas to improve economic conditions and health literacy. The assignment underscores the importance of tailored solutions to ensure equitable access to healthcare services for rural communities.

Running head: Nursing Assignment
Lack of Medical Resources in Rural Areas
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Lack of Medical Resources in Rural Areas- Challenges and aspirations
The challenges that are faced by healthcare providers in rural areas are much different
from the challenges in urban areas. One of the most significant challenges is the lack of
medical resources, which can be attributes to several factors such as economic, social,
cultural, educational, isolation, and a lack of recognition by legislators. These factors lead to
health disparities and impede the health of rural populations (ruralhealthinfo.org, 2018;
aihw.gov.au, 2018). The different challenge that leads to the lack of medical resources in the
rural areas includes:
i. Problems related to shortage of workforce: The rural Australia is currently suffering
from a shortage of workforce, which is affecting the health and access to care of the rural
population. According to the Regional Australia Institute, in the rural areas of Australia, the
growth of job vacancies has far exceeded the job vacancies in the urban areas, and the
vacancies have grown by 20% since 2016. This shows that in the regional areas, there is a
gap in the required and employed workforce, which needs to be filled.
ii. Socioeconomic Factors: People living in the rural areas tend to be poorer compared to
their urban counterparts. The average per capita incomes are lesser, and are more likely to be
below poverty level, and the disparities in income are even greater for the indigenous and
remote populations. Due to the economic disparity, they are unable to access or use the
medical resources to the same level as the residents of urban areas. Poorer families are
moreover have higher chances to be uninsured and unemployment rates, which further
challenges the access to medical resources.
iii. Health Inequity: People living in the rural areas have higher risks of chronic diseases
such as diabetes, obesity and coronary heart diseases.

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iv. Distance, Transportation and geographic location: The remoteness of the rural areas is
a geographic barrier, which can also limit access and utilization of medical resources and
infrastructure. Communities living in remote areas often have to travel extensively to reach
the nearest healthcare centers, and in cases of severe sickness, the remoteness and the travel
can be a significant problem for people in these communities.
(ruralhealthinfo.org, 2018; aihw.gov.au, 2018).
To ensure the health and wellbeing of the rural population, it is important to address
the disparities identified above to ensure better access to healthcare resources and services
and overcoming the challenges in the provision of care in these regions. The strategies that
can be used to that end can include:
i. Improving the staffing of healthcare professionals in rural healthcare centers and
promoting the employment of experienced professionals in these regions. Furthermore the
staffing shortage can also be reduced by training and educating healthcare support
professionals recruited from the rural communities (Wakerman, 2018).
ii. Increasing access to healthcare service by integrating telehealth services, which can
allow individuals from remote communities to get telephonic help when they are not able to
visit the healthcare centers, and thus reduce the need to travel extensively. This can
significantly overcome the geographic barriers (Bradford et al, 2016). Also, access to care
can also be increased through smaller community based clinics that can provide the
individuals from rural areas with primary healthcare checkup and referrals (Pearce et al.,
2015).
ii. Addressing the social determinants of health that affects the health and wellbeing of the
rural population is another important aspect that can help to reduce the health disparities and

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improve access and utilization of medical resources and services. This can involve
assessment of the needs of the community using community health needs assessment tools,
identifying the available resources and partners, engaging all stakeholders through
community partnership events and ensuring the stakeholder’s goals are in alignment to the
needs of the community, assessing prior outreach projects in the community, developing a
detailed action plan, obtaining funds from appropriate benefactors, carrying out interventions,
and frequently evaluate the progress and making appropriate changes when needed (Marmot
& Allen, 2014; Thomas et al., 2015).
iii. Improving education and employment in rural areas, which can help to improve the
economic conditions and help them to better access medical resources and services. Also
through employment, the individuals would also be able to receive medical coverage and gain
financial or economic independence. Through health literacy, individuals also would be able
to take better health decisions, and lead a healthy lifestyle, and also foster the health and
wellbeing of themselves as well as their families or loved ones (Humphreys et al., 2018)

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References:
aihw.gov.au (2018), National Rural Health Alliance Limioted, retrieved on July 7 2018,
from: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports-statistics/population-groups/rural-remote-
australians/overview
Bradford, N. K., Caffery, L. J., & Smith, A. C. (2016). Telehealth services in rural and
remote Australia: a systematic review of models of care and factors influencing
success and sustainability. Rural and remote health, 16(3808).
Humphreys, J., Lyle, D., & Barlow, V. (2018). University Departments of Rural Health: is a
national network of multidisciplinary academic departments in Australia making a
difference. Rural and Remote Health, 18, 4315.
Marmot, M., & Allen, J. J. (2014). Social determinants of health equity.
Pearce, K. A., Jarrett, T. D., Scutchfield, F. D., Talbert, J. C., Bolt, W. D., Barron, M. A., ...
& Dignan, M. B. (2015). Research partnerships with healthcare providers in rural
community health centers: Needs and challenges in diabetes research. Public health
frontier, 4(1), 1.
ruralhealthinfo.org., (2018) Healthcare Access, retrieved on July 7, 2018, from:
https://www.ruralhealthinfo.org/topics/healthcare-access
Thomas, S. L., Wakerman, J., & Humphreys, J. S. (2015). Ensuring equity of access to
primary health care in rural and remote Australia-what core services should be locally
available?. International journal for equity in health, 14(1), 111.
Wakerman, J. (2018). Access & equity in the provision of primary health care services in
rural and remote Australia.