Health Care Disparity

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“Two elderly women come into the ER both with a broken hip bone one is prescribed Tylenol and the other is prescribed OxyContin and a follow up treatment of physical therapy, why did one seem to have been given better care than the other?” That was the scenario presented by the physician that had come to speak to our class. A boy somewhere in the back of the class shouted “Because she is black!” As it turns out his sarcastic answer was correct the woman receiving the lower quality health care was in fact, African American and the scenario that was presented had in fact occurred earlier that year in her place of work. After hearing and understanding the implications of that scenario, reducing health care disparities became a prominent interest …show more content…
Where I have seen the primarily concerning part of health care disparities that in fact even in the United States even some children are given less than standard health care due to their race, ethnicity and even class. It is instances in my life similar to those that motivate me to help put an end to health care disparity in America. Almost too often racial and ethnic minorities experience an astonishing lower quality of health services than our majority counterparts. It Is not just America involved is the tragic show of healthcare disparities; after attending a Melton Foundation conference in Germany and talk to others from Ghana, Chile, and several other countries I realized that it is a worldwide issue. Factors like race and ethnicity should not be a determining factor of the level of health care a person should receive, however, the differences among race for things such as treatment, access to health care, and availability of medicine sadly do not reflect this …show more content…
Reducing health disparity would mean giving more people the opportunity to live a full life. That is why I want to one day help out an underserved area where health care disparities are prevalent. I want to be like the physicians on some of the mission trips I went on and be able to help those who maybe would not normally be able to have high-quality health care. There are government programs that attempt to assist in reducing health care disparities in America; however those programs care only do so much to help. It would help more if people were more aware about health care disparities and what they can do to eliminate the issue in America. Communities can host health fairs and try and educate others on how to recognize health care disparity and how to react. There is such a great deal that can be done to be able have more people interested in reducing health care disparities. The best thing that can possibly be done to interest more Americans would be just to talk about the issue with other people. Just like the physician that talked to my class that