A healthy responsibility
Health care is a responsibility – to all involved. This includes the patient and everyone on the health care team including physicians, nurses, therapists, dietitians, administrators, housekeepers, pharmacists, and …. society.
Whether or not you believe health care is a right, you cannot logically argue with health care being a responsibility. If I, as a patient, do not follow a medication regimen prescribed by the physician or a plan of care created by the health care team, I am not honoring my responsibility to my own health care. If I refuse to quit smoking or follow a recommended diet or exercise plan prescribed for me, then I abdicate my “right” to health care.
In the same understanding, if society refuses to care for its poor and suffering, then that society has no right to health care for anyone in that society. Take, for example, immunizations of children. When I was a school nurse in Frazier Park, there were many children who I was told were “illegal immigrants.” When it came time for immunizations, many in the community were opposed to these children receiving immunizations in any sort of public health effort. The shortsightedness of this is beyond belief. If I want my child or any child to be safe from a deadly disease, I will certainly make efforts to protect ALL from the disease.
Not immunizing certain children puts them at risk for contracting preventable illnesses. Aside from the sheer inhumanity of this, it also
puts all the “legal” children at risk when they come into contact with the infected children. I do not want to live in such a community.
It is a societal responsibility to treat and prevent illness at the most basic level. Health care is also the individual’s responsibility to treat and prevent illness to him or her self. Health care is a responsibility.
Evelyn Wiebe-Anderson
Arcata
