Example on Inequality in Institutions

Introduction

Institutions are social order patterns formed based on fulfilling the social needs of the public. Some of these needs are an everyday appearance in the human list of essential living. They are inclusive of education, government, family healthcare system, and religion. Also, it focuses on the interrelation aspects of social cultures and roles. These aspects are built under specific functions of the institution. Moreover, these institutions consist of individuals who have a common interest coming together to source for the common good. An institution is encompassed with a myriad of folkways and mores (Steffensmeier et al., 2016)).

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An important feature in any organization that desires to thrive is its persistency in delivering the required needs at all times. It also forms the basic aspect of channeling and controlling social energy (Keller, 2017). According to the sociologists, institutions are built and remain standing for a long period due to the persistent needs they solve each day. These social institutions are built on the basis of people's demands and the necessity of its values to society. Some of the fundamental aspects that institutions deliver are based on knowledge transmission in generations to come, supernatural regulation, distribution of goods and services to the public, and building a platform for the legitimate use of authoritative power.

The basic social institutions that are formed in the present world include; the government, health care system, economy, family, and education. Despite the needs they provide to their people, they lack the power to remain persistent in their service delivery. Therefore, this paper will cover some of the inequality differences that the health care system presents the means through which these inequalities can be minimized.

Healthcare Institution

A healthcare system as an institution is basically a group of interdependent organizations that are managed with different personnel to establish or meet people's needs. A Healthcare organization is, therefore, a group of individuals involved in the management of healthcare services. In healthcare setup, the different types of organizations include; hospitals, nursing homes and assisted living facilities, laboratories, diagnostic clinics, outpatient clinics, dental offices, and doctors' clinics. These different organizations are built to enhance the effectiveness of an entire healthcare system's operations.

Healthcare Organizations

Healthcare organizations are essential in the health sector as they ensure better service delivery at all times. For better health delivery of services, each responsible respondents need to be involved to ensure proper service delivery to the patients. The institution of health care has four basic components that form the basis of service delivery. These elements include; the individual who is the patient who gets the service of better treatment, the health care providers such as the nurses and doctors who ensure that the patient receives the best treatment and management while in hospital. The organization can be a hospital setup, nursing home, or a pharmacy. The economic and political avenue where the healthcare system sources its funds. These elements are all interconnected in that for one to be efficient, the other needs to be functioning at its maximum state.

Inequalities in the Health Care System

In a healthcare system, some important aspects of life can be neglected when there is a lot of pressure among the workers. Furthermore, different specialists are vulnerable to being looked down upon by those receiving their services. In most health care setups, the most developing form of inequality lies in the care providers. These are the clinicians, nurses, and doctors. In most cases, the patients who are supposed to get well and catered for are treated harshly by these individuals. For instance, inequality arises mostly between the patients who have enough finances and those who lack. Instead of treating these patients equally, the care providers suite themselves by only paying key attention to those who can feed them. Therefore, it forces the other patients who lack finances to suffer in pain and lack the necessary interventions for their particular conditions. This is a major concern in the developed and leading healthcare systems where only money talks for a person to get personalized treatment and care.

Furthermore, this institution suffers the risk of losing its clients due to racial discrimination. Some care providers prefer a certain racial and ethnic group over the other. This denies most immigrants their right to proper treatment. Therefore, the care providers who ensure these acts are prone to making their services lack the standard guidelines enlisted in their oath of practice.

Reducing Inequality

For an institution to have fewer inequality issues, it must first embrace correction at all times. The basic aspect of embracing wholeness and equality has majored on first understanding the needs of every individual. The health caregivers are supposed to first understand the urgency of each patient's needs and act accordingly. Similarly, ensuring that the most vulnerable clients are given priority will reduce instances of inequality in the health care systems. Therefore, being open to change and mass education on all medical practitioners is an alternative source of reducing inequality instances. Furthermore, the healthcare workers need to be reminded at all times of their hypocrisy oath made at the start of their working process. Similarly, prevention of racial and social discrimination can be achieved through creating awareness of the need to stand up for the less fortunate. By doing so, all the patients will be treated fairly and for the common good and benefits.

Structural Theory

This is one of the major aspects of analysis that majorly outlines the aspects of inequalities in the healthcare systems. The theory states that various differences in the social, economic groups such as financial access and power are the major causes of health outcomes(Strange, 2017). In conjunction with these differences, the cultural, behavioral, and intelligence of a particular set of individuals are the contributing factors to this structural theory. This theory has its basis on the reduction of the structural differences hence causing a complementing decrease in inequalities and vice versa. It is proven that most of the wealthiest people in society are the ones who are increasingly healthy despite their different behaviors.

In all the inequality imbalances, there is always an imbalance in power. Therefore, it is essential for the political subset of the government institution to come up and provide enough income to those patients who are not privileged to get enough care and treatment.

Conclusion

In summary, an institution is a basis for the provision of the essential needs of a common group of people in society. These institutions are built of various organizations that help them run effectively. The elements displayed in these institutions have the ability to bring equality or foster inequality to their benefactors. In a healthcare institution, the patients are the ones who are on the receiving end of these inequalities through their care providers. To cause a change in this sector, all the care providers need to be flexible to unlearn some of their uncouth habits. The structural theory is based on the aspect of socioeconomic groups that try to instigate improper health care provision to those who are unable to cater for their hospital bills. Therefore, each social institution needs to provide equal treatment to all its clients at all times.

References

Keller, K. D. (2017). Institution — A generative structuring of meaning. Thinking in Dialogue with Humanities, 27(2), 259-268. https://doi.org/10.7761/9789731997971_18

Shrage, L. (2017). Race, health disparities, incarceration, and structural inequality. Oxford Handbooks Online. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190236953.013.25

Steffensmeier, D., Painter-Davis, N., & Ulmer, J. (2016). Intersectionality of race, ethnicity, gender, and age on criminal punishment. Sociological Perspectives, 60(4), 810-833. https://doi.org/10.1177/0731121416679371