the ethical distress that occurs when working with the underserved population in a small community hospital

REPLY1

Hi MariaL,

I can relate to the ethical distress that occurs when working with the underserved population in a small community hospital. I work in a small community hospital where we lack many resources and equipment that the larger hospitals have. We have doctors that order medications or treatments needing certain supplies and sometimes I have to tell the doctors that we don’t carry what they ordered and offer an alternative. The doctors get very frustrated because the patient’s health gets compromised due to lack of resources.

REPLY2

Aspects of medically underserved communities face more ethical and moral dilemmas than adequately served populations. These communities face problems such as lack of resources, low budgets, lack of medical training opportunities, and lack of medical providers. On top of these issues, some communities are forced to become untrusting of their healthcare providers due to their inability to fully treat the necessities of the population which, as stated before, stems from the inability to procure appropriate resources most of the time (Lo & Brody, 2007).

Some communities that are underserved are actually part of major cities. For example, the homeless population in San Diego, or even the lower-class community who doesn’t quite make enough money for insurance. They all live in a large area with healthcare nearby but that doesn’t mean they necessarily have access to it.  We did an assignment on the Health Resources and Service Administration a couple of weeks ago. They are a great example of resources for this population and those who don’t have access to high quality healthcare (HRSA, 2020).