Thanks to the advances in technology, the word has become a global village with people moving to settle in other countries. This movement of people and their social practices creates a unique challenge within the workplace, such as the health sector. One of the evident challenges is diversity in healthcare (Udod & Racine, 2018). Diversity inclusion in nursing involves a nurse educator imparting knowledge on diversity on the students who in turn practice it on the patients they attend to.
Additionally, as a nurse educator, one is faced with the challenge of managing different cultural expectations and changes in demographic patterns. It is, therefore, vital that one must consider in-depth the various facets of diversity that may include but not limited to culture, ethnicity, race, and competency, among others. It is also essential to discuss what the barriers and facilitators of culturally competent nursing care are and further how they impact healthcare barriers in diverse populations.
Barriers and facilitators of a humanistic healthcare practice – culturally competent nursing care perspective
Pathologizing Difference: Clark (2014) states that pathological difference is a barrier that arises when one is unable to serve or denied access to health care simply because of their culture or race. A nurse that has been trained on embracing diversity will be at a better position educate the students on how to address the challenges that arise due to cultural difference.
Social Determinants: This type of situation arises when there is an issue of social segregation. Social segregation may include cultures that do not ordinarily permit male nurses to care for female patients and vice-versa. Thus, the inclusion of interventions that reach out to these communities will bring about change. These interventions may include the integration of language translators whose ultimate objective is to resolve health, historical, economic, and language diversity, among others.
Elimination and Absence of Inequality:
Diversity is the cure to the long-standing debate between exclusion and inequality. The elimination of bias leans towards inclusivity and diversity. Bell and Hartmann (2007) indicate that when disparities are eliminated, access to healthcare is enhanced. Therefore, when inequalities have been reduced, balance in the society’s perspective about diversity will be realized. Therefore, variety is the cure and facilitator to the question surrounding inequality, especially within the health care community.
Further, diversity can be enhanced through increasing enrollment to nursing school, especially for disadvantaged communities. The challenge often arises when the admission slots to nursing school are limited. To ensure that the question of inequality has been addressed, they need to adopt a more efficient system which will focus on diversity and inclusivity.
Impact of culturally competent nursing in mitigating healthcare barriers
The impact of culturally competent nursing is vital in the improvement of healthcare practices which is evident in the quality of care provided to the patients and the elimination of racial and ethnic profiling within the healthcare system. Pacquiao (2018) states a culturally competent health care system is critical in eliminating barriers such as language, culture, conscious or unconscious bias, and accelerating health literacy in disadvantaged communities.
Conclusion
Access and administration of healthcare as a service faces diverse cultural issues. These cultural issues often lead to barriers to access to quality healthcare. Therefore, to bridge these challenges in healthcare, medical practitioners need to be trained on diversity to improve their service delivery.