Variations and Inequalities in health care have been a long-standing concern in healthcare for a long time. The quality of treatment a patient gets is always based on the amount of money they have or their social status in most cases. This paper will look at and try to explain some of these variations and explain what may be their causes.
The relationship between socioeconomic status, for instance, education and income and mortality, indicates that the distribution of the status within a particular nation significantly impacts mortality. In terms of availability, people in lower social classes may not have access to healthcare services, or the health caregivers may have different propensities in offering services to patients from some populations groups even when those patients have similar kinds of needs as patients from better social classes. Also, in the case of quality, the quality of the services offered is, at times, different between the various social groups, which will, in turn, the life expectancy.
Healthcare is an expensive necessity, especially in the modern world, and as such, it may be out of reach for some population groups, especially those in the lower social classes. Healthcare organizations sometimes fail to be effective when getting the information across, and not all social classes are aware of the health services available or be2ing offered. Many social groups in the society are somewhat hard to reach, and this, in most cases, includes that fall in the IV and V social classes. Such individuals are reluctant are maybe not comfortable to go for health checkups whenever the opportunity arises. Additionally, children in the first social class have a more life expectancy since their counterparts in social class V are likely to suffer accidental deaths.
Could it be argued that the lower social classes are responsible for their higher mortality rates? What alternative explanations can you give?
It would be harsh to argue that people in these lower classes are responsible for the high mortality rate for people in their social classes. This is because most of them are not in those social classes willingly, there are there because circumstances force them, if it were up to them they would be up there with the rest of them. The status quo in society makes them be in this situation, and the best they can do is to try and cope with it. If anything, the ones responsible are the authorities that are in charge of ensuring that all citizens are treated equally and receive equal access to resources. Therefore, it would not be fair to conclude that these people are responsible for their poor or lower standards of life they are in.
On the other hand, it is partly their fault that the mortality rate is high for people in their social classes. The reason for this is because they should be more concerned about improving their mortality rate. They can achieve this by being proactive in the sense that they should be looking out for the available health care services and information on the free services, perhaps being offered sometimes by health care organizations.
To improve the mortality rate in all the social classes or groups, it is up to the relevant authorities to take the initiative and be more involved with the marginalized populations and those from the lower social classes. Voluntary sector organizations should be more engaged with them in order to reduce the inequalities in healthcare and consequently improve the mortality rate.