Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Racism and Its Effects on Nursing Care

Question: Does racism inhibit the provision of adequate nursing care? Answer: Introduction Racism occurs around us in our everyday life as there is plenty of evidence about it. In the medical set up, there are three types of racism which are; the perspective of color blindness, denial and aversive racism. It was earlier though believed that nurses cannot be racists because of their nature of work as they pledged to relieve suffering from humanity regardless of their creed, color or race (Larbie, 1985). However, this position assumes a magnanimous commonality in which it is never the reality in the real sense. Racism within nursing continues to exist and does not depend on being deliberate or being conscious but comes in variety of forms. To start with, bias exists within nursing and occurs with some exceptions in some parts of Australia. Regardless of how the manifestation of inappropriate care in nursing is viewed, like culturally unsafe or culturally insensitive care, the main issue is the effects of racism on nursing. The main issue of concern is that the language and words used by nurses reflects how nurses perceive ethnicity, race and cultural feature of indigenous people (Green et al, 1990, p.126). There are times that nurses do not intend to be racists but they do it anyway. Nurses and everyone in this field view nursing profession as being based on care and empathy. This belief holds that nurses should see people the same way. The corollary is that racism does not really affect the quality and type of care provided. Analysis shows different ways in which stereotypes affect the interaction between women and staff and how the interaction led to poor care of the patients. Nationality, ethnicity and race have effects on the care patients get because patients who have poor command of English are likely to be unpopular. This leads to negative assessment of a client by nurses or health professionals. Patients race makes the patient to be classified as an undesirable patient for their expectations and knowledge of the medical services are not the same as those of the indigenous patients (Diamond and Clarke, 1989). Proper enactment of the role involves features such as etiquette like in the Western culture where there is belittling of discomfort, cooperation of physician with carer and a persons presentation. There is this perception that patients may not get the necessary care when they are perceived as patients who always complain and they end up receiving treatment under false pretenses. In conclusion, midwives can take a lot of time or even at times are unable to provide good medical care because of poor communication among the women from other cultures. According to Homans and Satow (1982, p.17), patients who make nurses or physicians to feel ineffective or angry may become negatively typified. There is evidence that minority and black ethnic women or patients at large are more vulnerable to typification. This is because the color of their skin makes it easier for nurses to identify them and assign them with a communication difficulty title and hence may affect the kind of health care they receive. References Diamond, I. Clarke, S. (1989). Demographic Patterns among Britains Ethnic Groups. The Changing Population of Britain. Oxford Blackwell. Green, J. et al. (1990). Stereotypes of Childbearing Women: A look at some Evidence. Midwifery 6, 125-32 Homans, H. Satow, A. (1982). Can you hear me? Cultural Variations in Communication. J. Community Nursing. 16-18 Larbie, J. (1985). Black Women and the Maternity Services. London: Training in Health and Race

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