Essay on "Racism and Ethics in Healthcare"

Essay 2 pages (652 words) Sources: 2

[EXCERPT] . . . .

In fact, African-Americans and Hispanics are represented extremely disproportionately in the poorest communities where health care is the least available (Kennedy, 2006; Reid, 2009). Unlike the manifestations of racism in medicine a half a century ago, that discrepancy is not a direct function of deliberate acts of racism. However, the maintenance of policies within the health care field that, in effect, guarantee the substantial exclusion of individuals by race as a function of income is another insidious form of contemporary racism (Beauchamp & Childress, 2009). The same holds equally true in other areas of essential services such as the relative quality of education in wealthy primarily white communities and poorer predominantly African-American communities (Kennedy, 2006).

It is no coincidence that the communities with the fewest political connections and the least political influence receive less health care access than more politically influential communities. Furthermore, there is a direct connection between the high rates of contemporary poverty and the comparative overall economic weakness of the African-American community (in particular) in relation to white Americans and the fact that the generations immediately previous to contemporary African-Americans typically had much less wealth than their white counterparts (Ehrenreich, 2009). Ultimately, this form of modern-day racism in health care will require comprehensive economic reforms throughout American society to resolve.

References

Beauchamp, T.L., and Childress, J.F. (2009). Principles of Biomedical Ethics 6th

Edition. Oxford University Press: UK.


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