What is the concept of equality in health and social care?

Answer 1

The concept of equality in heath and social care means a medical professional does not weigh the following factors nor allow personal biases to dictate care based on:

• color of skin
• nationality
• culture, including as displayed by apparel or dress
• religious preference, including "no preference", atheist, or agnostic
• social class - lower class deserves same treatment as higher class
• gender

Ethics in equality SHOULD also include:

1. Age - However, with an aging population, social scientists and medical ethicists, along with government agencies, periodically question whether millions of dollars should be spent on a preemie known to be at high risk of death, or whether millions should be spent to keep the very elderly from a natural, medically unsupported death. The risk, though, is if health and social care can be determined by age limits, humans then play 'god'.
2. Physically and Developmentally Disabled - Disabled persons often cannot speak up for themselves and receive poorer health care. IF the person attempts to speak up, doctors label them as "somatic", "complex", "difficult", etc., all medical jargon for "We view this person as troublesome and a trouble maker." Doctors dislike and resist treating anyone they view as "complex" or "difficult". And often, simply because OF the disability. the person is already viewed as "difficult" because they need specific accommodations, need assistance to move to exam tables, use assistive equipment, etc. Doctors deny this bias, but it indeed exists!
3. Gender - However, women tend to receive less intensive preventative care and medical interventions, mostly because doctors often still view women as "emotional" or "hysteric" (with a uterus).
4. Low income - However, low income often receive poorer health care overall, even though they use higher number of dollars by visiting ERs rather than a family doctor. Low income are also at higher risk for inappropriate and illegal "experimentation" or "studies". Also, highest income patients can still afford "the best care" and best specialists, while low income cannot.
5. Supposed "brain dead" on a ventilator - As health care advances its technical knowledge for how to keep people alive, we have yet to find perfectly reliable measures to determine IF, WHEN, or WHETHER a person will come out of a coma or if they will or won't survive off of a ventilator. We now hear of cases when a person in a supposed "persistent vegetative state" then "wakes up" years or a decade later. Even in neonates or prior to birth, doctors and machines can fail to find a heartbeat, so they believe the baby will be stillborn or has died after birth... only to have the newborn "take a breath" after being "declared dead".
6. Alternate Religious Bias - Some religions shun traditional medical care. It challenges doctors to find ways to support health and recovery, while respecting religious beliefs against blood transfusions, direct interventions, etc. Hospitals often seek court orders to treat children, despite parents' wishes. Other "religions" such as Wicca, Witches etc., are often viewed as suffering psychiatric disorders, rather than doctors attempting to understand and work within the person's beliefs.