1
Assessment of Community Level Barriers
Student’s Name
Institution Affiliation
Professor’s Name
Course
Date
2
Assessment of Community Level Barriers
Women with access to better healthcare, education and empowerment are at a position
to raise healthier, educated and confident children. This scenario explains that the change or
shape of a child is necessitate or initiated by the mother. Children will suffer the challenges the
mothers are similarly experiencing.
Woman and children remain the most vulnerable
population globally. These two groups suffer from poverty, illnesses, and disparity. Health still
remains a serious concern among the vulnerable group of women and children (McPake et al.,
2013). Children will not afford the quality Medicare they need considering the fact that most
find themselves in this situation as a result of poor parents or neglect of the families by either
one or both parents. The hope of having a fulfilling life and becoming more productive is shut
for the children living in dilapidated environments and in tur their communities will suffer these
consequences.
One of the main challenges of affording high quality healthcare among the vulnerable
women and children is the lack of enough finances to meet health needs (McPake et al., 2013).
The lack of quality care is the main obstacle to reducing maternal mortality especially in low
income countries. Women have to pay a lot of money to access the women may fail to get to
the required maternal health centers to deliver. Due to this challenge, expectant mothers also
fail to get to hospital for regular maternal checkups to check on the state of their health or the
health status of their babies in the womb. With this state, the mothers opt not to travel to the far
away hospital because they first of all cannot afford the high bus fare. Secondly, the mothers
cannot meet the financial requirements of the health services in the health facilities. In the long
run, the mothers opt to go out and with ignorance of the maternal checkups, deliver at home.
3
Deliveries at home are not entirely safe as there are many neglected procedures of delivery that
may not be known by the individuals acting as midwives to the delivering mothers. The children
given birth in this manner are exposed to the dangers of health complications that may go to the
extent of leading to death or affecting their normal functioning as they grow up. The mothers
will also fail to get to hospital to get the required vaccinations and immunizations as required
for the children.
The governments need to look into the state of health among vulnerable women and
children with the view of addressing the challenge of finances in the healthcare sector. The
government can come up with incentives to reduce the financial constraints to the individuals
needing healthcare services (Lazar & Davenport, 2018). This move will see an increased access
to maternal and reproductive healthcare and also newborn healthcare services will be improved
to ensure the lives of the newly born babies is better. If these governments initiated plans and
policies work, service utilization will rapidly increase and hence reduce the demand side
barriers to access to healthcare. This proposition to solving the financial barrier in accessing
healthcare of the vulnerable groups of women and children have negative implications for the
workers in the healthcare sector. It is possible that the health professionals and staff at large
will have to increase their workloads and as a result lose user revenue (Lazar & Davenport,
2018). The workers in the health sector are likely to lose some bonuses and allowances and this
will consequently affect the steady supply of healthcare inputs in the hospitals.
Poor education or entirely lack of education among the women and the children they ae
talking care of adversely affects their access to quality healthcare. Parents who have no
educational background have no proper understanding of the healthcare schemes and their
4
working. Some of the understanding or knowledge such uneducated parents fail to know include
the complex health insurance schemes. Insurance in the health sector is a very important
element that helps the families and the community at large prevent themselves form the
adversities and uncertainties of failing to access the required high quality healthcare. Wit5hout
the insurance scheme, these families will fail to be attended to by the health facilities that have
the provision of treatment with health insurance schemes. The most important thing that
vulnerable women and children need is the knowledge of this insurance schemes for them to
get access to these services. The vulnerable groups will find it more challenging when they have
no funds to meet eh needs of the insurance covers. The solution to this challenge is to have the
state or federal government to create awareness on the need for the insurance schemes. It is the
role of the health department to educate their public on the benefits of these health insurance
schemes. The insurance companies also need to clearly explain to the public about their
schemes for the public to choose their best.
According to Wilson (2017), domestic violence and abuse of children is another barrier
to accessing quality healthcare for the vulnerable groups pf women and children. Violence
against women by their intimate partners prevents them from coming out to address then abuse
they experience in their homes. These women are threatened and they find it fearful to visit
healthcare centers. Some of the women get to seek medical help too late when the damage in
their bodies has gone extreme. Children may be abused in their communities but may fail to
report to their parents or close friends and family members. This barrier is necessitated by the
fear instilled in the children. The children and women have this problem ad this can be solved
by accreting awareness on the need to voice themselves. The movements on the human rights
especially for women and children’s rights can help address this barrier.
5
6
References
Lazar, M., & Davenport, L. (2018). Barriers to health care access for low income families: a
review of literature. Journal of community health nursing, 35(1), 28-37.
McPake, B., Witter, S., Ensor, T., Fustukian, S., Newlands, D., Martineau, T., & Chirwa, Y.
(2013). Removing financial barriers to access reproductive, maternal and newborn
health services: the challenges and policy implications for human resources for
health. Human resources for health, 11(1), 1-15.
Wilson, K. S., Silberberg, M. R., Brown, A. J., & Yaggy, S. D. (2017). Health needs and
barriers to healthcare of women who have experienced intimate partner
violence. Journal of women's health, 16(10), 1485-1498.