What if this patient was having severe abdominal pain from alcoholic pancreatitis. Does every life matter in our society?

Respond to discussion Include citations/Use in text citation where needed All sources must be 5 years old or newer Only needs to be about a paragraph long More like a discussion rather than a paper Please add to the discussion in your peer responses with informative responses, instead of posts similar to “great idea! I really agree with you.” Each response needs to have a citation POST 1 (Kenneth) I recently cared for an older woman who was developmentally delayed. As a healthcare provider, I thought nothing less of her. She was low functioning and diagnosed with dementia approximately a decade ago, nonverbal, and required a caretaker to be by her side 24/7. When I came in to meet the patient for the night, I introduced myself as normal and performed my assessment taking extra precautions to stay aware of her nonverbal communication. What was upsetting was that I realized she had a variety of bedsores, she was disheveled in appearance, her clothing was torn and malodors. I questioned the caregiver inquiring if there was a reason why recent cares had not been performed. The caregiver responded with “She never complains about it.” I had to take a deep breath and maintain a sense of professionalism before responding with the appropriate education. I learned from talking with the caretaker that the patient hadn’t been getting any of their medications, basic cares completed, and had been malnourished in recent weeks. The caretaker informed me that the family recently moved out of state and opted to leave their aunt behind. While the familial situation was concerning to me, there was still the issue of elder neglect. I had to report this case to my manager and social work/case management team for further escalation. As this case clearly illustrates abuse, I feel the statement from the caretaker speaks volumes “She never complains about it.” Infuriating to me as a nurse and human being, it serves to highlight an aspect of healthcare disparities we do not often think about- disability. In this instance, this patient was unable to speak up for themselves and required an advocate to help their basic needs be met. Healthcare and disability tend to be a discussion not often shared in healthcare environments as we simply assume that there is a deficit in meeting their needs. However, this conversation needs to happen as more than 12% of the population in this country have a disability (Krahn et al, 2015). In other words, approximately 39.3 million individuals in the United States alone. A startling number. These individuals may be in far worse conditions than this woman was. As healthcare providers, we need to make a concentrated effort to meet the needs of the population especially those who are already at a disadvantage for healthcare. References: Krahn, G. L., Walker, D. K., & Correa-De-Araujo, R. (2015). Persons with disabilities as an unrecognized health disparity population. American journal of public health, 105 Suppl 2(Suppl 2), S198–S206. POST 2 (Paul) Social impact on health simply defines how patients’ health are affected based on their demographics such as race, age, gender, disability etc. Social impact on health often leads to discrimination. Health care discrimination is the disparities in health care faced by socially disadvantaged people (Rivenbark & Ichou, 2020 para 1). During my 3 months orientation as a nurse in the hospital, I was required to get an emergency room (ER) experience by shadowing a nurse in the ER for 1 day. During my shadowing experience, a homeless looking middle-age African-American man walked into the ER complaining of generalized pain. To my surprise, no one would pay attention to him. In fact, I heard one of the nurses in the ER whispered, “he is a drug seeker”.  This homeless man may have come to the hospital ER in the past for pain-related illnesses, but he still should have been attended to with respect like other patients. This patient walked out of the ER in frustration after waiting. As he walked out of the ER, so many questions came to my mind such as “what if this patient was having severe headache from a fall” and “what if this patient was having severe abdominal pain from alcoholic pancreatitis”.  Does every life matter in our society? References Rivenbark & Ichou, 2020. BMC Public Health. Retrieved from https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186

ANSWER. PAPER DETAILS
Academic Level	Masters
Subject Area	Nursing
Paper Type	Assignment
Number of Pages	1 Page(s)/275 words
Sources	1
Format	APA
Spacing	Double Spacing

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