Barriers to Health Care

When we talk about the barriers to health care, we refer to the numerous factors owing to which an average citizen of the nation either doesn't get the necessary health care, or gets inferior health care as compared to others. A range of factors come together to give rise to such barriers, the most prominent ones among which are financial constraints, language barrier and inadequate knowledge about the system. Studies by some of the most reputed organizations have revealed that millions of Americans experience difficulty or delays in getting the necessary medical attention owing to these health care barriers in the United States.

Decoding the Barriers to Health Care

In terms of providing the basic health care, a lot needs to be done across the world. One of the basic steps is to identify the barriers encountered when it comes to imparting the basic health care. These barriers are broadly categorized into four groups - geographical, socioeconomic, cultural and organizational. Brief explanation about each of these is given below.

Geographical Barriers: The urban-rural divide is the most prominent factor when it comes to the barriers in health care. Given a choice, a vast majority of the medical practitioners choose to work in the urban areas, as opposed to the rural areas. This also creates shortage of staff in the rural medical centers, That, however, doesn't mean the geographical health care barriers are only restricted to the rural regions. Such disturbing trends are witnessed in the urban regions as well. For instance, some cities have become agglomerations of medical institutions, but the patient base to which it caters is not to be seen in the radius of miles around it.

Socioeconomic Barriers: When we talk about the socioeconomic barriers, both the social and economic factors come into the play. While the social factors include improper education, lack of knowledge etc., the economic factors include inability of the patient to pay the fees, lack of health insurance and other such aspects. The fact that a large number of people are uninsured makes the medical practitioners hesitant in taking up their cases. However, these people cite that it is the lack of knowledge about the affordable health insurance options that is keeping them back from opting for insurance. Some socioeconomic barriers can also be traced to the urban-rural divide, with a substantial economic disparity between the two.

Cultural Barriers: As far as the cultural health care barriers are concerned, they are primarily related to the social, linguistic, and the religious issues. Social and religious taboos within particular cultures do hold many females from approaching a gynecologist for problems related to sexual health. As far as linguistic differences are concerned, the United States, wherein a large section of immigrants who can't speak English, is perhaps the best example. Rapid increase in the number of immigrants in the United States, and other such developed regions, only means that these cultural differences will worsen with time if not attended to promptly.

Organizational Barriers: Several organizational barriers also play a crucial role when it comes to the failure of the health care to impart proper health care to the needy. While a large number of medical practitioners allege that working with people from the limited income group is difficult as they don't give importance to the advice given to them, these people also cite their economic situation as the prominent factor for their lack of interest in following up with the medical practitioner, going for necessary tests, following proper medical procedures, etc. Such organizational barriers only add to all the other factors mentioned above, and result in problems in imparting health care.

Irrespective of whether only one or more of these barriers are prominent, the end result is bound to be improper health care provisions in the society. That being said, the onus is on the administration to make sure that such barriers are curbed, and health care, which is one of the basic necessity of the individual, is provided in a fair manner.