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Cura4U aims to provide fair and impartial healthcare to all its customers. As an organization, we are aware of the shortcomings in our system and aim to address them.
America’s healthcare system has its faults, ranging from the internal to the external, and one of the issues plaguing it is racism in healthcare provision and the treatment of people of color within the healthcare circuit itself. Racism is very much relevant today to the way the system operates.
In the context of the pandemic, the virus impacted African Americans harder than the rest of the population. According to amfAR, nearly 58% of CoVid-19 deaths are from 22% of U.S counties that are black. CDC found that 33% of the hospitalized patients were black even though they constituted 18% of the community being tested.
While it has been suggested that disproportion is due to factors like urban conditions of African Americans, working at riskier occupations, limited access to healthcare, and underlying health conditions – there are other elements at play.
However, it must be noted that similar inequalities are mirrored in African American communities that have better access to healthcare and hail from upper economic classes. Reports indicate that a massive number of cases rose out of Maryland, which is home to the wealthiest section of the African American community. In comparison, caucasian communities were relatively unaffected. In a similar vein, Latinos are twice as likely to die from CoVid than caucasian people (Medical News Today).
This elevated risk for people of color in America is also true besides Covid 19. It is well-known that African American women are more than twice as likely to die from childbirth in comparison to Caucasian women (The News). And even these women were wealthy and educated, and they were more likely to die from childbirth than poor and uneducated white women (Howland et al.).
Moreover, it has been found that healthcare workers belonging to marginalized communities were reluctant to address concerns about CoVid testing and lack of personal protective gear in the early stages of the pandemic (Public Health Report).
The Ways Racism Impacts Healthcare
The existence of racism in the healthcare system can lead to doctors neglecting and actively discriminating against patients.
This leads to dismissal of pain, as a study reveals whereby black children with appendicitis are less likely to be treated swiftly and adeptly in comparison to white people (Hoffman et al.).
While the study does not examine the causes, it found that doctors are less likely to classify black and Latino children as requiring emergency care, admitting them to the hospital after receiving it, and order blood tests, CT scans, or X-rays for these children (Zhangu et al.). On the other hand, it has been found that between 2005 to 2016, doctors were 10% less likely to admit a black patient to the hospital in comparison to white patients.
However, it must be noted that healthcare inequalities are also influenced by a range of other factors.
Other reasons for inequalities
In general, black people have lower average life expectancies than white people. Black men and women also have higher blood pressure in comparison to their white counterparts. In addition, there are lower rates of influenza vaccination amongst black and Latino people – with only 60% getting the vaccination in comparison to caucasian people’s 70%. Furthermore, Asian Americans, Latinos, and Black people experience a greater strain on mental health and increased stress, anxiety, and depression on a larger scale. These disparities are influenced by economic inequalities, which makes it difficult for people to get health insurance and freer access to medical care.
Cura4U and Healthcare
Healthcare provided by Cura4U is meant to be fair for all. The company aims to be equitable and impartial in its treatment of all patients, extending quality healthcare to all people.
References:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10995-018-2682-z
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3416972/
https://www.pnas.org/content/113/16/4296
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fped.2019.00525/full