Unfair discrimination can occur in care organisations, with some previously being accused of operating in ways that indirectly discriminated. For example, a care organisation having policies and procedures in place that disadvantaged a particular social group with members who are less likely to comply.
P3: Describe the potential effects of discriminatory practice on those who use health and social care services
Being bullied, treated differently or not being given a fair chance to do something can leave you with short-term distress and personal upset, but being treated like that all the time because others are prejudiced against you would have longer lasting negative effects on an individual.
Experiencing prejudice and unfair discrimination can have profound emotional and psychological effects, it can change a person’s self-esteem and self-confidence, almost always in a negative way. If it is an isolated incident of discrimination the individual may only be temporarily affected, but if it reoccurs frequently or continuously over a prolonged amount of time, the negative effects on the individual could be permanent.
People who use healthcare services who experience discrimination can feel disempowered, devalued, isolated and marginalised. Unfair discrimination can affect the individual’s work, education and life opportunities, which can lead to depression and negative behaviours and long term health problems. For example, if an individual was experiencing discrimination in any format from the receptionist at their doctor’s surgery they would feel disinclined to phone or go in for an appointment when they needed healthcare.
In the video “Waiting on a Telegram” Violet is constantly being told by a nurse to use the proper words for things, and Violet is completely misunderstood my multiple care workers because they don’t understand her hum0ur or her 1940’s dialect. They blame it on the stroke Violet suffered and not the fact that she grew up with different words for things. They discriminate against Violet on her age, the illness she suffered and on her accent and dialect, leaving Violet feeling isolated because she can’t communicate without being spoken down to and misunderstood. Violet feels devalued because nobody thinks what she has to say is important or worth the effort to try and understand.
In the video “Into the eye of the Storm” the inferior group, based on eye colour, experiences discrimination from the superior group. The inferior group gradually become more subdued and quiet, more accepting of things that disadvantage them and they accept inequality. This happens in such a short period of time and they go from happy, pleasant children to quiet children with no voices. When they are told they took longer to do an activity than when they previously did the same activity they say it’s because of their eye colour. They took longer because they believed they were less intelligent because of their eye colour, because of what they were being told by the dominant group. So the discrimination they experienced affected them academically, made them feel like they couldn’t achieve, made them believe they were less intelligent, lowering their self-esteem and self-confidence.
M1: aSSESS THE EFFECTS OF THOSE USING THE SERVICE OF THREE DIFFERENT DISCRIMINATORY PRACTICES IN HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE SETTINGS
Marginalisation is an effect of discriminatory practice. In “Waiting on a Telegram” Violet feels marginalised. This means she feels as though she has been put to one side, ignored, unimportant and isolated.
Violet is 95 and has suffered a stroke in the recent past, she is a witty lady and likes to reminisce. She has a strong accent and you could say that her vocabulary is a little archaic for today’s younger generations. Violet lives in a residential care home for the elderly where there is a care worker named Francis. Violet and Francis get on well, he knows all the silver screen actors well and they like to talk to each other. Francis is the only care worker there who does listen and understands Violet, the only one to show any form of kindness towards her. Sadly, Francis dies which leaves Violet with some nurses and young female care workers who don’t understand her humour or vocabulary. When Violet deliberately refers to a man’s penis as “whatdoyoucallit” because that is what they called it when she was growing up, the nurse repeatedly tells Violet “describe, use the proper words, describe”. The nurse mistakes Violet’s use of the word for ill effects of the stroke she suffered or her age. On another occasion when being bathed by a young care worker Violet says “they’re not my legs” meaning they are not how they used to be. The care worker mistakes Violet’s meaning and derogatorily says “of course they’re your legs!”.
Violet is left feeling as though she can’t communicate with those looking after her, after Francis and her friend in the care home passes away, Violet feels truly alone. As the video goes on and Violet is talking about this you can see her becoming more withdrawn. Violet says that she feels like a dog in a kennel, the care workers treat Violet as though she is not a human who needs social, intellectual and emotional stimulation because she is elderly.
This is a place that Violet is spending the last years of her life and that is not how she should be made to feel by the people employed to care for her. Violet should be treated with the respect and dignity every human has a right to regardless of her age.
In the video “Stand up the real Glynn Vernon” Glynn is a disabled man with cerebral palsy and throughout his life he experiences a lot of discrimination, often from healthcare professionals. For example, when Glynn finds out he is infertile and can’t have children he visits a fertility clinic. When an able bodied man does this there are no questions asked, but when Glynn did it he was sent to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist then interrogated him on why he wanted children. It is Glynn’s human right to reproduce and to want to have children, this shouldn’t alter because he is disabled. Glynn says he didn’t even bother to answer the psychiatrist and she proceeded in analysing his desire for children as him wanting to live his life through an able bodied child. This is an infringement on Glynn’s human rights to privacy, dignity and respect.
Glynn also experiences discrimination when his marriage breaks down and he is seen by a social worker who repeatedly tells Glynn it is in his “best interests” that he moves out of his own home to go live in a residential care home. The social worker assumed that he couldn’t live independently, which was untrue, Glynn could live independently with the support of visiting care workers. Glynn tells the social worker that he has a home and the social worker rather impatiently says “let’s go over this again”. It was only that Glynn had a GP who asked him what he wanted that he didn’t get put in a home. The social worker would have stripped him of his independence, choice and autonomy assuming she knew what was in Glynn’s best interests without really knowing him. This is an infringement on Glynn’s human rights to have his choice taken into account, to be listened to, to be respected and treated with dignity. When your human rights are so flippantly disregarded it is not unreasonable to begin to feel less than human.
Throughout the video the narrative explains that although Glynn is quadriplegic and has cerebral palsy, has slow speech and is wheelchair bound, he is still a man with the needs of all other men, able bodied or not. Healthcare workers in any profession should possess the empathy to realise this and see past his disabilities to acknowledge that Glynn is a human being and has the same rights everybody else is entitled to. His disabilities are not what defines him, and in order to provide quality care they should take into account all of his needs and not those most apparent due to his disability.
In “Into the eye of the Storm” you can clearly see the effects that experiencing discrimination has on the children. Even in such a short amount of time, the inferior group become withdrawn, their self-esteem levels plummet, they lose their self-confidence, they become less active, they have sullen moods, they remain voiceless, they don’t question when they are told they aren’t allowed to do what the superior group are. The biggest effect to me was how quickly the discriminated against group accepted that they were less intelligent, less clean, worth less than the superior group, less important, less likely to achieve...etc. They didn’t once say this is unfair, they just accepted it all. This shows me that if people experience any kind of ongoing discrimination from a young age they are less likely to say anything about it, making it more important that those who witness discrimination need to make a stand, to be a voice for those whose self-esteem and self-worth has been so depleted by previous discrimination that they accept that they are less entitled to an education, to healthcare, to their human right not to be discriminated against.
In conclusion, I firmly believe that there is no place for discrimination in a health and social care setting, no matter who, where or in what form it comes from. If it is our human right not to be discriminated against on any level for any reason, the places where we can expect this not to happen is health and social care settings; whether that be in the doctors, hospitals, dentists, schools, nurseries…etc. The effects of discrimination can be detrimental to our mental health and in turn our physical health and this should never be overlooked or accepted.