Introduction
Since hospitals are social institutions, nurses must be aware of social justice issues affecting their society and places of work. One specific topic of social justice that influences nursing is inequality in healthcare access. The American Nurses Association (ANA) has created a code of ethics to guide nurses into professional work ethics, which also considers social justice matters. Hospitals provide positive social services to assist people to live happier and longer lives. Nurses are part of the people who initiate change in these social institutions by offering feedback, customizing care plans, lobbying for lower costs, and alerting authorities of malpractices.
Inequality in healthcare is a concern for the nursing community because the ANA code requires nurses to provide high-quality services to all patients. Asian and African Americans along with Hispanics have more health problems than the rest of America. Health inequalities that influence this trend include unconscious racism bias, poor food quality, lack of access to technology, and limited use of quality care. Increasing medical costs, copayments, and insurance deductibles prevent nurses from helping each patient to utilize the health system to the optimum potential. Social justice is significant in nursing as it helps nurses overcome some of these challenges to provide the best care for all patients and their families.
How Social Justice is Fundamental to the Practice of Nursing
As explained earlier, social justice is fundamental in nursing practice. Nurses must consider how social justice affects patient care and their role in achieving equality in accessing healthcare services. Advanced nursing education help in creating and lobbying for policies directed toward eliminating social injustices in healthcare (Hellman, 2018). Nurses who serve as primary care providers must utilize their position to reduce social injustices in the system. Social justice ensures proper care is delivered to marginalized groups, including rural residents, expectant and new mothers, and chronically ill patients.
Rural residents experience physician shortages and limited access to primary care providers. Social justice is fundamental in empowering nurses to close the gap by offering full autonomous services including diagnosis and prescriptions of medications to patients (Goodwin University, 2018). However, these nursing staff must be categorized as advanced practice registered nurses (APRN). Women’s healthcare nurse practitioners (WHNP) utilize their skillsets and specialization to help mothers who cannot afford gynecologists and obstetricians, closing the inequality gap. Social justice principles guide WHNPs to conduct community outreach and home visits to ensure that all mothers are well-educated on the health and safety of their children. Specialized nurses work with chronically ill patients to reduce their medical spending as national healthcare costs show that 75% of all expenditure goes to chronic disease management (Goodwin University, 2018). For example, adult geriatric nurse practitioners (AGNPs) are certified to work with patients with multiple chronic conditions. Therefore, social justice has shaped nursing education, certification, and specializations to close the inequality gap.
Social Justice, Diversity, and Patient- and Family-Centered Care
Diversity has a social justice perspective that emphasizes the existence of oppression and power among diverse teams and groups. Therefore, social justice involves creating a just environment where equality and freedom are increased while oppression is reduced for everyone (Wilbur, 2020). Healthcare diversity cuts across race, socioeconomic status, education, and gender. In nursing, diversity and social justice relate to respectful interaction with people from different backgrounds to improve care standards and patients’ well-being (Wilbur, 2020). Nurses must acknowledge that health and individual needs will vary and focus on achieving high inclusion levels.
Patient- and family-centered care has four components, namely, respect and dignity, information sharing, participation, and collaboration. Social justice helps nurses to overcome inequalities in healthcare while implementing the above components. For instance, nurses must overcome stereotypes about minority races when sharing information about their health status (Wilbur, 2020). In addition, educational status should not define which data is communicated to the patient or their families. Nurses should not conceal details they deem complicated because patients or their families cannot understand such information. During my internship, there was a senior doctor who asked us not to waste time explaining treatment plans and medications to patients who were homeless because they could not understand it and they could not afford such services. He believed that they should only receive the most basic services and be discharged.
Barriers to Providing Socially Just Care to a Diverse Population
Some barriers to providing socially just care to a diverse population include the survival imperative, normalization of death, staff shortages, high costs, and institutionalized social injustices. Survival imperative is manifested among the most vulnerable groups of society who live in survival mode every day (Hellman, 2018). These people do not prioritize health because their struggle and focus are to find food for the day. Death has been normalized among these vulnerable groups as they see their kids and neighbors die almost daily from various causes. They perceive death as normal, driving out fear that would push them to seek healthcare services. From the healthcare system, increasing insurance payments and rules, inadequate staffing, and inequalities prevent marginalized groups from getting socially just care. Health disparities arise between groups based on race, education, and employment status.
Recommendations for Providing Health Promotion Activities
Seeking healthcare services should be encouraged from childhood to build a proactive lifestyle when they become adults. Therefore, these recommendations focus on pediatric services, and the target population is children. Nurses in the pediatrics practice must keep an open communication line with parents and guardians (Hellman, 2018). When dealing with special needs children, uninsured, low-income, and minority families, nurses must emphasize familial support and recognize their efforts. Parents and close family members must be allowed to participate and collaborate in creating care plans for the children.
Conclusion
Overall, social justice plays an instrumental role in nursing by ensuring that inequalities in the system and society do not deprive marginalized groups of access to quality healthcare services.
References
Goodwin University. (2018). The role of social justice in nursing. Web.
Hellman, A. N., Cass, C., Cathey, H., Smith, S. L., & Hurley, S. (2018). Understanding poverty: Teaching social justice in undergraduate nursing education. Journal of Forensic Nursing, 14(1), 11-17. Web.
Wilbur, K., Snyder, C., Essary, A. C., Reddy, S., Will, K. K., & Saxon, M. (2020). Developing workforce diversity in the health professions: A social justice perspective. Health Professions Education, 6(2), 222-229. Web.