How does the government and society in general help women get access to proper health care they need?
I come from Tanzania and the government has been trying to address the problem that women and children face in accessing health care by providing insurance for low-income individuals. They also try to make public hospitals accessible to many people as they have more Doctors and nurses especially gynecologists who can work with these women and children to improve their health. The main problem is that these public hospitals are only located in urban areas and sometimes pregnant women have to travel long distances to reach them. The large influx of people in public hospitals makes the whole process very slow. This means that if a patient is sick it might take time for the Doctor to see them and conduct tests. From my experience, I have seen people with public insurance been treated very worse as they have to go through a long process and a long line to the Doctor. People with private insurances get fast services and sometimes rich people offer money to get better services from doctors and nurses. For example, in the labor room, many women undergo delivery there with the help of nurses but these nurses sometimes do not check on every patient because they are so many of them. To ensure the security of patients, some relatives pay the nurses in advance so they can take care of their patients. This is a very bad situation to be in for a low-income person who travels a long distance to get to the hospital and has no money to pay the nurse. On the side of the society, people can support women by airing out their concerns about health issues to the government. Private individuals and the government too also contribute by building dispensaries around their communities so women can have nearby health professionals to refer to them. The main way I think the government can help solve this problem is by also increasing the salary of nurses and Doctors so that they can get a good incentive to do their job and in better working conditions. Based on Dr. Will’s lecture I think the problem that women and children face is a technical problem as it needs experts like Doctors, financial advisors and technical experts to solve it. The main problem is how Doctors can adapt to working in rural areas as if a majority of them choose to really start a base there to help the low-income communities to get access to health services then that would be a portrayal of adaptive leadership. In Dr. Will’s lecture, he focused on adaptive leadership in business and focused on categorizing beautiful questions as rhetorical or diagnostic. I think my beautiful question is more of a diagnostic question because there is no one answer or a straight answer to it. For the government to solve the problem of access to health care they have to look at the problem from different angles. One can be from the Doctor’s point of view who are unable to work in good conditions because of limited funding and salaries. Doctors like doctors without borders who volunteer their resources to low-income communities show a good example of adoptive leadership. Women are also portrayed as authentic and adaptive leaders since they are the ones that are fighting so hard to raise awareness in the media about the problems they face. In my society women have always been scared to speak up and fight for their rights but that changes as they face different challenges in the society making We also see that they are the ones lacking access to most of the health services unlike men hence we see gender being in play. On the other hand, some of the nurses in the hospitals lack authenticity as they treat patients or their fellow women very bad. This is by taking their financial frustrations on them making their life hard. Women who have been exposed to these challenges have been forced to become their own leaders so that they can care and protect their children. I would say that the situation and their maternal instincts took place and hence made them confident to fight for their rights.
I am going to look at my beautiful question on the If perspective, “If the government made hospitals free, will this make the health services better and increase access to women and children in rural areas?”
When hospitals are free, they normally lack proper instruments to carry out different tests, they lack health professionals because of the poor working condition. If the government can make hospitals free but also subsidize them by providing proper equipment and well-paid health professionals in rural areas with proper living spaces and working conditions. The main argument that Doctors give after being asked to work in rural areas is that they paid a lot in Medical school for their education, working in rural areas will not give them exposure to proper equipment or techniques they need to practice. My view is that the government does not have experts in sociological mindfulness and this makes them formulate solutions that are not applicable to many people in the society or their effects only exist for a short while. For example, in order to understand how women and children suffer to get access to health care, the government should send people who can live and study their way of life. This is by making sure that they understand and see the challenges they are exposed to on site so they can advise government officials to formulate plans that will help them overcome those challenges. For example, a government official living in the city can never understand the transportation and road problems during rainy seasons for people living in the village. Therefore, when planning solutions to make sure women in the village get access to hospitals they can not take the transportation factor in the large account as people living there would. This also applies to Doctor’s and nurses’ salaries and living conditions. If sociologists take data and study the community that these health professionals live in, see and experience the challenges they face to make their work more impactful then they will be able to formulate proper solutions to solve their problem. And this can be by making their working conditions better and making sure they gain exposure. I think that this connects to Laird’s lecture on how communication and understanding one’s culture are important values to have when becoming an adaptive leader. In Dr. Laird’s lecture, we saw how music was used as a main source of communication to raise awareness about the different problems in the society. We saw how Rhiannon Giddens a black American singer going back to history in her songs and telling stories of people affected by slavery and racism. We also saw how Abigail Washburn thought of a technical solution to improving the US-China relations was to become a lawyer but then adapted to singing and learning Chinese to establish an intimate connection with her audience and the people she wants to help. These are the forms of adaptive leadership that the government in Tanzania needs to adopt in order to help women and children. Government leaders need to know how to communicate properly to the society so they can understand their needs and wants.This also includes immersing themselves in the culture of the people they are trying to help in this case women and children in low-income families who needs access to proper health services.
