Planning a Policymaking Visit

Planning a Policymaking Visit

Introduction

            In the process of planning any policymaking or legislative visit to a country concerning any nursing policy that need to be address, it is important for the visit planner to consider various factors of visit planning. For instance, one needs to clearly understand the reason for the visit, issues to be addressed during the visit, time of the visit, an appropriate language to used during the visit, place of the visit, the target group and the impact of the visit to both parties involved. Moreover, the visit planner needs to come up with questions that are easy to understand in order to give the respond easy time to understand the concept of the information being passed in order to create better understanding of the matter in the question (Gong et al, 2009). In addition, the visit planner should ensure they book for appointment within the respondent so as to enhance the legibility of the visit.

Objective of the Paper

            Based on the need of providing better healthcare services to low-income earners in various rural areas, this paper is to provide information on a visit to a State Health Officer in Brooklyn City, United States, on the importance of providing Community-based healthcare services to the people especially within the rural set-up. It will also focus on the measures to achieve this process and some of the challenges that healthcare officers may face in the process of delivering their services.

Community-Based Healthcare Policies

            Community -based healthcare is one of the healthcare initiative supports that are undertaken by many countries worldwide in ensuring the provision of better healthcare services to the people. Through this approach, various respective governments, through the healthcare service providers, are in the position of improving healthcare services that are not easily accessible by the people due to various reasons (World Health Organization, 2006). These include fewer numbers of healthcare centers in comparison to the high population growth in the regions, poor provision of healthcare services, presence of un-skilled medical practitioners, use of fake drugs, poor hygiene within the healthcare centers, poor relation between medical practitioners and patients and high charges on healthcare services by the management of these healthcare centers (Swerissen, 2004). Therefore, it is through the practice of community-based healthcare policies that would help in solving the above problems.

Importance of Community-Based Healthcare Policy

            According to Buerhaus (2010), community-based healthcare policy covers a wide range of healthcare preventions and services within their environment, community. These include health promotions, diseases prevention and easy access of the public healthcare centers by the people. For instance, one of the importances of community-based policy is that it provides better ground for disease prevention through vaccination. Therefore, through the practice of community-based policy, citizens are capable of receiving various vaccines such as polio vaccines that would prevent their children from being affected by polio. Although such vaccines are given for free in most countries, some of the people may not access these services due to inaccessibility of these healthcare centers and services (World Health Organization, 2006). In the process, they fail to access these services, which in the process affect the lives of their young ones. Hence, it through community-based healthcare policy that would renders such services to the people within their reach, resulting to better healthcare services to the people in the region.

Apart from provision of vaccinations to the people, another importance of community-based healthcare policy is that it helps in easy diagnosis of the patients. It is common that many people may fall sick but may ignore medical check-up but relay on their assumptions and use certain drugs that may not improve their health conditions (Ekman, 2004). The failure to go for medical check-up may be triggered by lack of enough funds for medication, lack of healthcare within their environment and laziness. Hence, it is only through community-based policy that would render services to the people, which will make many people to seek for medical check-ups even at the time they are not suffering from any disease simply because these services are readily available within their reach. Moreover, community-based policy is considered as the best approach of providing better healthcare to the people due to the fact that they provide affordable healthcare services to patients (Bennett, 2004).

Another importance of community-based healthcare policy is that it provides easy access of disease treatment to the people. The practice of community-based healthcare policy is an initiate by the government and other non-governmental organizations that operates under the watch of the government (Gong et al, 2009). Therefore, they prevent the use of fake drugs that are common among private medical centers. The use of these fake drugs has implications to patients and do affect health of the users. Hence, through the practice of community-based healthcare policy, citizens are sure of using recommendable drugs for their medication. The practice also prevents patients from attending private medical centers that charge higher fees for their services as compared to government services, some of which are free, making them accessible by the low income earners.

Community-based healthcare policy is also considered to be the best method of providing better healthcare services to the people because it promote social relations among patients and medical practitioners. For instance, through such services, patients have adequate time in interacting with their doctors and nurses concerning their problems; hence, making it easy for patients to understand their health problems (World Health Organization, 2006). This is in the contrary to most private medical centers whose aim is to make profit despite poor services provided. Lastly, through the practice of community-based healthcare services to the people is of great importance to citizens because it provides easy access to information relating to health matters. For instance, in case of disease breakout in any region that practices community-based healthcare policy, it would be easy for such outbreak to be dealt with because healthcare services are with the people (World Health Organization, 2006). This is in the contrary to regions that only depend on the normal services from government and private hospital for their medication. One of the problems that countries that do not practice community-based healthcare policy would face in case of disease breakout is lack of enough drugs for the people, which may result to the death of the persons affected.

Challenges of Community-Based Healthcare Policy

            Although the practice by any country to involve in the practice of community-based healthcare policy highly recommended, there are various factors that may hinder the move. For instance, many of the services offered through community-based healthcare policy are free or at a cheaper price as compared to the normal medication provided at various medical organizations. In regions of high population, these services are of high demand. Therefore, in order to ensure that the available services are distributed equally among all regions of a country, some of the patients may lack such services (Gong et al, 2009). Similarly, some of the patients with the chance of getting these services may not get better healthcare services as expected as the services need to be shared among others.

Apart from the issue of equal distribution of healthcare services despite high population rate and demands, another challenge that are faced through the practice of community-based healthcare services is corruption among the medical practitioners (Ekman, 2004). Some of the doctors and nurses take the advantage of selling some of the drugs that need to be given freely to the public. Therefore, some of the patients who lack money for these drugs may end-up dying from illness regardless of the direction by the government for free provision of such drugs. Such services may hinder the practice of community-based healthcare policy.

Recommendations and Conclusion

            Based on the above importance of the practice of community-based healthcare policy, it is important for the practice to be encouraged around the world. Although the practice may be faced by various obstacles, government should come up with proper rules and regulations that govern the operation of such services (Bennett, 2004). Therefore, anyone found to be violating these norms need to face charges. On the other hand, government and non-governmental organization should ensure that they provide better healthcare services to the people through community-based healthcare policy by giving enough drugs, employing skilled medical practitioners and counterchecking the progress of the practice in order to ensure the operation is on course. Moreover, government needs to build more healthcare centers especially in rural areas so as to increases accessibility of healthcare services through community-based policy (D et al, 2011).

 

References:

Bennett, S. (2004). “The role of community-based health insurance within the health care financings system: a framework for analysis” Health Policy Plan, 19(3): 147-158.

Buerhaus, P. I. (2010). “Healthcare payment reform: Implications for nurses” Nursing Economics, 28(1), 49–54.

  1. J. Mason, J. K. Leavitt & amp;amp;amp;amp; M. W. Chaffee (2011). Policy & politics in nursing and healthcare (6th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Saunders Elsevier.

Ekman, B. (2004). “Community-based health insurance in low-income countries: a systematic review of the evidence” Health Policy and Planning, 19(5): 249-270. Doi: 10.1093/heapol/czh031.

Gong, F., Baron, S., Ayala, L., Stock, L., McDevitt, S & Heaney, C. (2009). “The Role for Community-Based Participatory Research in Formulating Policy Initiatives: Promoting Safety and Health for In-Home Care Workers and Their Consumers” American Public Health, 99(3): 531-538. Doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2008.152405.

Swerissen, H. (2004). The importance of primary and community care. Retrieved from: http://cpd.org.au/2004/06/the-importance-of-primary-and-community-care/

World Health Organization. (2006). Community-Based Health Financing. Retrieved from: http://www.afro.who.int/en/kenya/kenya-publications/2233-community-based-health-financing.html

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