Effects of racism on healthcare

Racism traverses almost all spheres of life (Field, 2007). It threatens the prosperity of humankind from various angles.

Healthcare particularly in the US is under great threat from this vice (Sue, 2006). America is one of the most diverse countries in terms of race in the world (Luckman, 2005). This creates a huge challenge in fostering non-discriminate coexistence. Racial abuses occur daily in the US. The most affected are the black people. They have to cope with all manner of discrimination almost daily.

This affects various sectors of the economy. Health care is an essential part of a person’s life. Proliferation of this sector by racism has serious consequences (Field, 2007). Racism in health care mostly manifests itself in two ways. First, it occurs through worker to patient discrimination (Luckman, 2005).

The other form occurs as discrimination in work. This results in various challenges in health care. Racism has a long history. Its effect has created many imbalances more so in education (Sue, 2006). This has in turn led to unequal economic empowerment among races. This tends to further the problem of racism.

Races such as blacks are viewed as inferior. Due to discrimination, their social welfare is not well catered for (Luckman, 2005). This results in lifestyle diseases. Economically, a majority of them are not stable. This leads to challenges in attaining quality healthcare.

They are also subjected to risky environments. This occurs mainly due to poor state of their residences (Field, 2007). It also occurs due to the occupations they involve themselves in. They also suffer mental illnesses. This occurs because of racism related trauma (Sue, 2006).

They are also targeted for drug abuse. This leads to several cases of mental illnesses among such races. Overall, they are discriminated against in medical care (Luckman, 2005). This compounds all the other problems that they face. Racial discrimination in health care takes two forms. Worker to patient discrimination This occurs when an attendant racially discriminates against a patient (Sue, 2006).

This is mostly prevalent in cases involving white doctors. Some of them discriminate against such races as blacks and Latinos. It usually takes various forms. A doctor may give a patient inadequate treatment based on their race (Field, 2007). This occurs because he considers them inferior.

This results in lack of cure and recurrences of diseases (Luckman, 2005). This has an effect of higher mortality rates. People from these races also continue slumping into oblivion. This is because their poor health reduces their productivity.Other doctors, hurl racist remarks to patients of other races. They treat them as of inferior intelligence (Luckman, 2005).

Most of them have demeaning attitudes to races such as blacks. This leads them to offer poor services to patients of these races. This results in unavoidable deaths. On the other hand, patients feel humiliated by such racist incidents (Sue, 2006). This leads to failure of attending such institutions in case of another illness.

Because of this, the systems effort of combating diseases is greatly undermined. Cases of other diseases such as mental illnesses occur. This occurs because of trauma associated with such experiences. This increases the medical burden on the part of the government (Luckman, 2005). Such cases lead to racist attacks.

These lead to injuries, which are sometimes fatal. Treatment of injuries occasioned by those attacks adds on to the medical expenses (Field, 2007). Such mistreatments by the provider have great negative impacts on health care. These occur in form of costs as well as increased deaths. Discrimination in workers Health care workers like patients are not also spared of racial discrimination.

Reports of such incidences have been reported in several states in the US (Sue, 2006). They take various forms. These forms differ in the manner in which the discrimination is perpetuated. These tend to undermine the effectiveness of the health systems. One form of this discrimination occurs as lack of cooperation between workers (Field, 2007). This exists because the workers are of different races.

One race feels superior to the other. It becomes difficult for such a person to receive instructions from the other partty. This leads to provision of poor services. This discrimination as well filters down and leads to discrimination between workers and patients (Luckman, 2005). When fellow workers discriminate against others, they feel demoralized (Sue, 2006).

Such racism leads to low self-esteem. The productivity of the worker is greatly reduced. This leads to poor quality services. This greatly affects the health system in the US (Luckman, 2005). It also costs the government much money in efforts to eliminate racism in health care.

Another case of discrimination occurs between senior practitioners and their juniors. Some white doctors are reluctant to pass on the knowledge they have to their juniors of other races (Field, 2007). This is because of their negative attitude towards people of other races. Racism also occurs the other way round. Senior black doctors also fail to share their knowledge with their white juniors (Sue, 2006).

This is usually due to the racial experiences that they undergo. This results in lack of knowledge transfer. The quality of services is greatly hampered as a result. Another case of racism is by the patients to the worker. Some whites view blacks as of lower intelligence (Field, 2007).

They therefore refuse to be treated by black doctors. This racism is mostly directed to workers from minority races. This leads to such workers isolating themselves from their colleagues. They resent them and do not associate with them freely (Luckman, 2005). This greatly affects the effectiveness of the health institutions.Conclusion Racism greatly affects health care in the US (Luckman, 2005).

Its effects threaten to cripple the system. This vice manifests itself in various ways. It affects both the patients as well as their attendants. Those who suffer most are people from minority races. They are accorded health care discriminately. Because of this, it has become difficult to control diseases.

The government uses much money in efforts to fight drug resistant diseases, which arise as a result (Field, 2007). This creates many challenges in the provision of standard health services. The various forms of racism range from negligence to negative attitude towards people of other races (Sue, 2006). Health care is a vital part of any person’s life. Racism in this sector is a sensitive issue.

It leads to deaths in races affected. In turn, it becomes very difficult to curb racism in addition to deterioration of health care. Racism experiences in such sensitive areas lead to entrenchment of racism (Field, 2007). Stringent measures need to be enforced to curb this vice. Failure to do this, the health system will collapse as a result.