Obstructions to culturally competent medical care Research Paper

Obstructions to culturally competent medical care - Research Paper Example According to the study conducted the discrepancy in the existing health system and admittance to medical care facilities that subsist amid the minority sections of the population of United States has been accepted as a familiar problem by the government since the early 1970s. Due to its effect, there has been a lot of research done on this issue and it has been documented in reports that the American minority section is suffering from poorer health due to lack of cultural competency in medical care. For a majority of the ethnic groups, the debate on the cultural equation of health care cannot take place without giving ample consideration to the variety of ways in which traditions crisscross with matters of poverty and impartiality, access to health care, individual and community discrimination, and a deficit of cultural proficiency on the part of health care providers. Even though some system-wide obstructions to a proper health care system are well thought-out elsewhere, they also r equire extraordinary thoughtfulness with the majority of the ethnic minority sections because the concerns are elevated by the cultural dynamics. The urgent requirement to reflect on the cultural and traditional factors that impediment the medical care of the minorities has been identified by many countries around the globe. Yet most of these governments are not at all close to solving the problem of cultural incompetency of medical providers. , (Shortell, Hull, 1996) The main reason is that most of the time, a patient’s tradition is habitually perceived as a setback, which ultimately creates a barricade to providing effective medical care. Marginalization of traditions and culture of the minority groups of the ethnic patients diminishes the accountability of the medical care providers. The medical care could be more efficient in dealing with this; the problem should be seen in a different light and screening the obstructions as ensuing not from the cultures of the minority g roups but from the values that exist in the medical community, inadequate proficient training, and other barriers. Some experts of the field also argue that the medical community has been highly unsuccessful in this case, and has not been able to identify their own responsibilities of effectively attending to providing competent service to their ethic and other minority clients and patients, (Gordon, 1995). 2. OBSTRUCTIONS TO CULTURALLY COMPETENT MEDICAL CARE This section of the paper identifies some known barriers amid the patients and the medical care providers that have made a high influence on the quality of the service provided and at the same time supplement to added racial and ethnic disparities in the medical health care system. 1. Lack of Diversity amongst the Medical Care Providers and Workforce Experts on the issue concerning lack of a culturally competent medical care have often stated their worries about the lack of a diverse leadership potential in the health care sect or. The minority population holds up an effectual 29% of the total population percentage of United States but fare poorer in the employment sector. Not more than 3 percent of the minority communities hold positions in medical school faculties; approximately only 12 percent hold positions in a community health school, and 18 percent in all metropolis and province health executives. Moreover, 98 percent of the senior executives in health care management belong to the white community. These figures exercise major concern because if there would have been a higher percentage of minority health care professional in the system, they would be able to identify, recognize and take into account the socio-cultural factors that adversely affect the medical acre treatment being given to the minorities and could have better organized health care delivery decisions to meet the requirements of minority populations, (Reese, Ahern, Nair, et al., 1999). 2. Poor and inefficient medical care systems for Ethnically Diverse Patients Many experts have pointed out on the lack of proper medical care syst