Importance Of Social Class System In Healthcare †Free Samples

Question: Discuss about the Importance Of Social Class System In Healthcare. Answer: Social status and healthcare has been related as early as the history has been recorded. The people who had the proper hold of power used it to bring themselves proper care. Until now, the association between healthcare and social class has remained strong despite the fact that, there is an all over growth in the healthcare sector. The main reasons of the health inequality are the unequal distribution of resources, power and wealth amongst the people. A recent study showed a harsh fact, which is the 20% of Australias poorest population lives average six years less than the richest 20% (Andrew, 2013). Health can be described as a complete process which not only the absence of diseases in the body of a person, but also includes a persons social, physical and mental well being. The term social status can be defined as a group of people who holds similar roles in the economic processes. The aim of writing this essay is to discuss and examine the relationship between the social statuses of people with healthcare inequalities. The purpose of the essay is to establish a relationship between the social factors and the healthcare system. The essay will also discuss how power and social strata/ hierarchy can influence the healthcare system. One can simply describe sociology as the study of understanding the basic approaches of human society. It brings about a scientific approach towards several facts about society such as the social change and development, the relationship between an individual and the society and the concept of society, which shapes their beliefs and behavior in the long term (Ogden, 2012). Two major theories of perspective can be used to discuss the social inequalities in health and healthcare system. These theories of perspective are namely, structural functionalism and Marxism. The structural functionalism theory explains poverty according to the context of unequal reward distribution amongst the social groups according to social stratification (Bourke et al., 2012). The unequal reward distribution is because, it is assumed that some social groups have less skills and knowledge than the other groups and their contribution to the society is relatively lesser. The functionalist approach says that the society maintains its stability. The sociologist who supports this process has outlined a behavior pattern for the people who are considered as sick. They call it the sick role. They think not too many people must fall into the criteria of falling sick. If they do, it will affect the social responsibility equilibrium. Usually the sick people calls out for their social resp onsibility as they stay at home and seek care. The people who are not sick have to get out of home and continue the daily schedule (Cockerham, 2014). If a person refuses to consult a doctor to follow up the professional advice, it can be said that the person is not sick. (Craig, Bejan, Muskat, 2013)According to the functionalist approach, falling sick is not fully a biological process. People fell sick to maintain the continuity in the society and maintains others role in the society. The physicians works as the gatekeeper in this concept as the doctors role is to check that if the person is really sick. If the person is really sick, the physician has to play a role to make them get better. It is up to the decision of the person that to follow the all the instructions given by the doctor (Thomas, 2012). The Marxist theory explains the social class system according to the capitalist economic production system. The Marxist approach describes food, clothing and shelter as the basic approach for living. The other production of commodities is regarded as capitalism. According to Marx, production of anything also involves social relations, which cause division of labor that reflects the different social classes living in the society (Badland et al., 2014). This capitalist economic division influences the health outcomes of common people at two different levels. Firstly, health is very much affected in the production level either directly or indirectly such as through stress and industrial injuries. The process of commodity production gives rise to many harmful pollutants, which pollutes the environment, and the long term consumption of these commodities comes with long term health consequence. Secondly, health is directly influenced by the distribution of income and wealth that directly i nfluences peoples standard of living. It determines their access to healthcare, educational opportunities, diet and their recreation. Social determinants theory states that the social determinants like the income, public policies and other health related services are not equally distributed among the varying social statuses. The social inequalities also harm the health of the people who come from the backward community. This theory categorizes different levels of factors that are responsible for the deterioration of the health. The external factors of these levels include the socio-economic and the environmental condition in which the people reside and the internal factors like the genetic factors and the physical condition. The theory provides the necessity of the social upgradation to reduce the healthcare inequalities and the achievement of these purposes by adopting various information and communication technologies between these people and the healthcare providers. The perspective of the specific determinants is that the effects and cause of the health care inequalities are mainly indirect and expose an individual to risk factors that are unknown and cause serious harm to the individual. The incomplete awareness of the effects that are harmful to the health are significantly typical to the lower level of the social status. There is another perspective, which is called the conflict perspective is another approach which states that, the best way to understand the social behavior is to understand the tension between the groups over the power. The social tension happens over the allocation of resources like money, house, service and political resources. The social tension leads the higher society wealthy people to get better access to have better healthcare treatment than the less fortunate people. The people who are from the less fortunate background are more likely to fall sick because of their lifestyle. When they fall ill, it is very difficult for them to get better faster. In some of the poor countries, there is no access for a hurried healthcare treatment. . The biomedical model of health psychology is the quick fix approach as it focuses on the biological aspect of illness and disease. The primary approach of healthcare in Australia is the biomedical model. This approach has been dominant in Australia for most if the twentieth century and still receives most of the healthcare funding. The biomedical approach attempts to return the person to the pre-illness stage. The advanced medical technologies are very important in the biomedical model. This model has many advantages. This model helped creating advances in aspect of technology and research. As the biomedical model is the earliest approach of healthcare, there would be no advances in the healthcare technology without this model. There would be no antibiotics, X-ray or anesthetics without the biomedical model. The biomedical model paved the way for the medical science to treat the illnesses. The biomedical model extended the life expectancy of the people, as many common causes of death are not a threat as of now. These conditions can now be cured with the advantages of medical studies. The biomedical model is essential to describe the recent advantages of healthcare and medicine but this model does not relate to the impact of power and social hierarchy on healthcare (Bleich et al., 2012). The social model of healthcare address the broader influences such as social, economic, environmental and cultural focuses. The social model of health psychology suggests that illness is caused by the combination of multiple factors such as biological (for example virus, bacteria), psychological (for example stress, behavior, believe, pain) and social (social class and employment). The social aspects depend on the social norms of behavior (Cockerham, 2013). According to the social model, the individual is not regarded as the passive victim as illness is believed as the combination of multiple factors. The health psychology suggests that, the whole person should be treated to treat the illness. Treatment includes the influence to the person to change the behavior and coping strategy. The health psychology believes that the mind and the body of a person work at an interactive fashion. This model helps to recognize the relationship between the health status and the proverbial social det erminants of health (Klima, Janiszewska, Mordwa, 2014). The socio-economical status is directly related to access of the quality preventive care with higher competency and technology. The poorer group of people still lives in houses with unhygienic and crowded houses with polluted air and water. They suffer from malnutrition because of the inadequate supply of nutritious food and other environmental deficits. The people who lives on the lowest strata of economical condition, also suffers from psychological issues as they works in such jobs which is lowest paid and they experience issues like unemployment and work injury. The lower class people also suffer from some poor lifestyle choices like smoking, lack of exercise and alcoholism (Porter, 2013). Whereas the powerful people who have the money to afford the latest medical care and have enough money to afford healthy lifestyle, does not suffer this consequences. If this people fall prey of the poor lifestyle choices, they can afford potential medical treatment and live more. The social structure also focuses towards the people who live upside of the social strata, and the availability of healthcare gets easier to them. The privatization of healthcare is a reason to this cause. The upper strata people can buy themselves every possible healthcare as possible. The people with lower socio-economical condition, buys such goods which affects their health negatively (Hatzenbuehler, Phelan, Link, 2013). They work in a poor working condition, which directly affects their health. From these statements, it can be said that social hierarchy and power does influence healthcare. Both the Marxist perspective and conflict perspective tells us about the division of power and social class among st people. From both the perspective, one can learn that the people with higher social hierarchy and power can get better lifestyle and healthcare choices. The Marxist perspective said that the capitalism is the root of the conflict that produces all the tensions. This type of inequality can be seen all over the world. The poor people do not even get the proper healthcare when needed. It is also because there are places in Australia where the residents are dependent on the local primary healthcare clinic and the nearest hospital is more than 500 km far. The people who live there are the people on the lower social strata and are not able to get required facility when needed (Korda et al., 2007). There is also shortage of healthcare professional working in the rural areas. This problem can be seen in the whole world. Every healthcare professional wants to work in an area where healthcare equipments are available. Because of this, the rural people are getting sicker day by day. Another reason of poor health in rural community is the shortage of education and health information. They also have bad access to the competent healthcare than the urban area (Alanazi, Alanzi, 2013). There are much evidence that shows the unequal distribution of doctors and nurses in the rural areas. Even until this day, the condition of the distribution is worsening. Some researches tried to identify some of the factors that influence the young healthcare professional to practice in the rural areas. The government also has to understand the unequal distribution and work on to improvement in this area. The government also has to determine the best models for practicing in various settings. To eliminat e the inequality, development of healthcare sector in village area is necessary (Turrell, Mathers, 2001). All the theories lead to the concept of inequality in every context. Most of the theories states that proper lifestyle and healthcare choices are for the few people who lives in the proper social hierarchy. The people who live at the top of the social hierarchy can afford the healthy lifestyle choices. They use their wealth and political influence to make their life as easy as possible. In Australia, many elders want to spend their last days at an old age home (Baum et al, 2014). The old age homes in Australia are mostly situated in somewhat within the range of modern healthcare facility but in a place with natural beauty. Many people are now making business by providing the upper class and middleclass elders with companionship, medication, treatment and residential facilities. However, affording this facility also needs money and not every class of people can afford that even if they wanted to (Kenny et al, 2013). The rich and the powerful people is making their way even in this cas e as the old age care homes are targeting the people with a range of income. The government policy should be strict about healthcare to make sure that people from every strata and income get more or less the same opportunities. Of course the people with higher social hierarchy will receive the latest and the best treatment as possible, but the vision of the government and also the people should be to provide the underprivileged with as good treatment as possible. It is necessary that they get care when they need it the most (Duckett, Willcox, 2015). The essay discusses the influence of social hierarchy and power over the aspect of healthcare. In this essay, the sociological theories are explained to make the readers understand the aspect and appraisal of social hierarchies. Three social theories of perspectives are discussed namely, the old-school functionalist perspective, relatively new Marxist perspective the newer conflict perspective. The biomedical model of healthcare is discussed to understand the healthcare system in Australia. It is evident that the privileged people with political influence, money and power get the higher standard of healthcare. The unequal standard of society leads the underprivileged to work in bad environmental condition, eat bad quality food and stress. The underprivileged do not even get the required medical attention in time, especially those who lives in the rural area. There is even a shortage of hospital, doctors and competent nurses in Australia. 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