Patient Intolerance
Working in a hospital setting you come across patients who prefer to have healthcare workers with same culture or beliefs to provide care for them. When truth is all healthcare workers are qualified to do their job. Certain ethnic preference on who provides their quality of care should be addressed. Working with same religion or culture I can see might be more comfortable but at the same time why should it matter when all nurses are qualified to perform the same job? Asking for a different nurse can’t feel good when you did nothing wrong and you both are meeting this patient for the first time.
According to Manpreet Gill, one of the patients I spoke with at Oroville Hospital about the reasoning behind ethnic preference. Why he would like to work with a nurse of same culture? Is that they both share same beliefs, so it puts his mind at ease and makes his stay a little easier while he is going through a difficult time. In this case as a member of healthcare we do anything to make the patients stay or pain more tolerable so we would switch out nurses.
So what I see when Mr. Gill says, “puts his mind more at ease” is that when you’re in a strange place and that one little thing makes you that much more comfortable you will take it. I know it’s not usually met to hurt someone’s feeling but what people don’t see is that It would hurt my feeling and I’m sure some other peoples. It makes people think well what’s wrong with me.
I’ve had a chance to sit down and talk with Amandeep Singh, one of the nurses that work at Oroville Hospital and he said that, “he has been asked to care for certain patients because of his ethnicity or religion on a day to day basis.” I asked, “If it has any effect on his work performance.” Amandeep explained it has affected his work performance when it comes to charting he gets behind and when his patient’s rooms are on opposite sides of the floor. He’s just curious as to why ethnic preference when all nurses are licensed.
Manpreet said that “it’s related to religious reasons he feels more comfortable.” I know that being in healthcare we do anything to make the patient comfortable. But this effects peoples work performance asking for someone else based on religion hurts feelings and creates a patient- worker barrier. That patient could be on the other side of the building on a different group so now the nurse is running around trying to care for everyone. Getting behind on care, charting and maintaining a great care level. Patient-worker barrier meaning that now the nurse doesn’t want to answer you light because she or he is not the same ethnicity they are so they’re not allowed in the room. I think that the hospital is not a place to pick and choose religion. There are too many important things going on to save lives, than to put up with someone being picky.
Health care is a complex issue. Cultural and language barriers complicate the situation. Sitting down with a patient and asking if same ethnicity matters when it comes to healthcare, I got a little of both responses. Half said, “That as long as the nurses are good at what they do and treat me with respect, then no preference.” The other half said, “It’s better to have same ethnicity because they share the same cultural beliefs, it’s more comfortable, communication of information is easier, and same ethnicity meets their needs in a different way for example doing prayers together. Cultural boundaries are a major source of discrepant views of reality.
The only way I don’t see it hurting someone’s feeling s, or creating barriers and becoming an issue, is if the communication is hard to understand. For example an Indian man can only speak Punjabi and he has a white nurse that does not. So switching a white nurse for and Indian nurse that speaks the same language is more than acceptable. Being at work and praying with someone is great but switching nurses out so that that patient can stop and pray anytime they feel like it takes away from other patient care and I think is not fair to other patients or the workers they are there to work, not pray.
In patient care settings and popular systems of care must be viewed as parallel, understanding the ethnic mix of a population can improve healthcare delivery by helping to focus resources such as education and resource allocation. When patients have special knowledge or views a language or communication problem, or family–community problems, these issues may need to be elevated to a level of concern.
Therefor doing research on the web at www.patient info/doctor/ethnicity-and-health states that mixing up the ethnic pool is good for patient education .Helps educate the nurse as well. A quote from the research is “Since the implementation of the Race Relations Amendment Act 2000 in April 2001, a statutory duty has been laid upon the NHS and other public service agencies to ‘have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination’ and to ensure that every new policy considers the implications for racial equality.” I agree, this is good to have in a hospital or any facility that a patient in receiving care due to the fact we all are equals and are there all wanting the same outcome, patient safety and patient health.
I think that there should be hospital policy on how to deal with this. I believe it to be boarder line racism. I think it is inappropriate to bring all this picking and choosing to a place where you come to get well, a place where everyone has a big heart and is there to care. When someone does want a different ethnicity I think you should be firm (not rude) and explain we are all certified and here for the same outcome. Explain the other nurses are busy caring for their group of patients. I’m more than cable of doing my job, I’m here for you .
It is important to try to understand where and how ethnic differences impact on
healthcare delivery if health inequalities are to be reduced across the whole population.
Ethnicity may impact on healthcare and access to it at many levels, acting through factors such
as, difference in service, communication skills, culture and attitudes and difference in disease
prevalence. These differences affect access to services and act as barriers to good healthcare. Patients are looking for the best outcome as are nurses, so having this unnecessary issue in the way is only getting in front of the real issue in sight which is a patient’s life. The amount of religious hatred, oppression and violence in the world is not only appalling. It is also difficult for many people to understand and work around. We all are human no better no worse.
Work Cited
[Dr.Richard. “Ethnic Matters. Definitions and Discussions of Ethnic Matters.” Patient.EMIS
Group Plc,12 March. 2015.Web.13 Feb.2016.]
[Gill,Manpreet.”Patient interview.” Personal Interview.Feb.15.2016]
[Singh,Amandeep .”Nurse Interview.” Personal Interview.Feb.15.2016]
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