Medical Mistakes and the cost to people with a disability.
I was writing an article on Medical bias it will be on my website and not the blog and we see that it can
be very hard to spot due to the way medicine is taught, however, we do see that
there is a growing awareness of disabilities as we have seen in Australia and
the developed world we see that people with disabilities are often seen as the afterthought,
or even it is seen that as an adult we can be spoken to and for this also now
comes into medical bias.
But as we see in this
article it does become more complex than this as there is a culture of cover-ups
in hospital systems due to the lack of investment in hospitals and a lack of
support staff as well.
However, we do know that
doctors and medical treatments have been targeted toward a very specific group.
This being white males women and people with disabilities have been left behind
and I know that some nurses have said in social settings, that people with disabilities
namely behaviours of concern, need TLC these
are medications that change people’s behavior.
The T stands for Temazepam: Uses, Dosage & Side
Effects - Drugs.com
The L is for Loratadine - Wikipedia
The C being ? does
change depending on the country and this can be an issue as well as the country
regulations around nursing staff being able to prescribe medications varies but
I am based in Australia and nurse practitioners I have the utmost respect for they
can prescribe in there scope of practice but often it is the nurses that pick
up the doctors mistakes and it could cost them there jobs if they dare speaks up about
it and speak up about the cultures of cover up’s.
Often hospital pharmacists will pick that these medications
are all medications that seem unnecessary, but the two main ones are temazepam
and the one that is dependent on the country these are chemical restraints, in
the perspective of a person with a disability, and by putting them on these
medications you are risking having them over medicated and this isn’t a good
thing in a way. In the short term
makes their job easier but in the long term if they go to supported living it
makes the support workers’/caregivers jobs harder than they need to be, as they
then need to advocate for the person to get off the medication.
So it is easier for the person not to be put on the medications at all times, we
see that people need to be educated that people with disabilities do have a lot
to offer and give to society but they are often treated like children in adult bodies,
in some cases there mental capacity is childlike but in some cases, it is because
they haven’t had the option to be able to grow up they have been protected and
sometimes overprotected.
Also if you are a woman often very real medical issues are
blamed on periods or it is in your head. Now I see that doctors are often overworked
and tired so medications are the easy way out for a medical professional when
the longer-term solutions are education, or home health care, or a referral to an
Allied health professional, for pain management.
As this is the other issue that goes to responsible health
care is having good staffing ratios and good education but in going back to
this article we see that this sometimes doesn’t happen and causes both the
doctor and the patients harm.
I know that as the NDIS rolls out more appropriate housing for
people with disabilities we see that people are being placed into more appropriate
settings as people with disabilities can’t be discharged from the hospital until they
have appropriate housing and care, this can be tricky if you need an accessible
house or your current housing situation isn’t accessible to you or you need
family or friends to look after you in the short term but they can’t do so.
It is then questioned what happens then there used to be a state-run
system but this was scrapped in favor of the NDIS how this is the issue, instead
of being rolled into the NDIS some of these needed facilities simply were shut
down.
So then people weren’t
moved out of the hospital they were kept in until a place could be found and
often this was in aged care of people with disabilities as well, and this is
where charities like young care came to be, but there is still a massive push
for people with disabilities to not be the afterthought but to be included in the
conversation.
From the time that they
were planning the medical care and this goes to the underlying issue that people
with a disability are often the afterthought and not included in the
conversation about things that will in the long term affect them. So
things like assessable housing, levels of care, and future planning of our cities.
I will be doing a longer
blog post on all of these issues in the future and I hope to be a little more
outspoken on the issue as well.
Comments
Post a Comment