Introduction
People all over the world live according to their own preferences and needs, but try to orienteer better in the society by reading current newspapers and analyzing the environment around them. This way, news is extremely important in our lives, as it performs a variety of functions, beginning from the one of informative pattern and ending with the educational achievements. This paper is to evaluate the level of influence, carried by news into people’s lives along with mentioning changes in awareness throughout society in the form of the role of social determinants of health (SDH), which are mentioned in different articles.
Political Life and SDH
In the article “Councilors’ blast 'short-sighted' decision to block tolls on Gardiner, DVP”, David Rider from The Star touches the political life of Toronto, especially to the decisions of the premier Kathleen Wynne. This article greatly changes my attitude towards the properness of the society’s choice. Everyday people are forced to make various choices, sometimes not even realizing the real impact caused by their preferences or indifference towards national issues. There is a qualm, based on promises of sharing gas tax with Ontario municipalities at the time, when the governments` decisions are put on a dispute by Kathleen Wynne, who, according to Rider, has not enough courage to accept radical and risky choices (Rider). The Premier changes her political plans for tolls on the Don Valley Parkway rapidly by keeping transit funding unchanged or even promoting the rise of fees.
A lot of social and political issues are raised in the article, especially the one of meeting great political courage of reducing fees throughout the province for enhancing the whole process of transition to the better government. Hopes and aspirations of local authorities for changes are not approved by the government as well as the issues of proper management of Toronto facilities (the Don Valley Parkway and the Gardiner) are not in action. Considering this, there is a need of providing debates, concerning the funding of transit, mentioning the revenue tools with long-term funding. People, who travel from city to city, should be satisfied with proper prices and services with mentioning the condition of roads, its complexity and innovations used for improving the driving process for Canadians.
SDH
Some social determinants of health are mentioned in the article, including participation in policy-making and the issue of strengthening the collaboration and global governance of authorities (Mikkonen and Raphael). The distribution of people’s money affects the value of resources at both local and national levels. Health inequities are mentioned in changeability of the Premier`s actions – people are obliged to encounter various unfair differences in fees for transit instead of meeting reduced costs, which could be spent to improve health statuses in the country and beyond its borders. By providing significant reduce in governmental funding of one zone and ability of implementation of some funds, turned to the enhancement of healthcare industry is seen as the perspective one.
Sustainable progressive development of universal health coverage should be presented as the form of improving the country’s systems of policy, economy and environment. Instead of it, the Canadian government deals with issues of unsustainable business-making from the side of politicians, relative to Toronto plans of enhancing tolls for the prevention of additional transit funding. Great responsibility from the side of the government is needed in order to improve the level of awareness of social determinants of health throughout Canada. It is necessary to address directly the health issues in news articles because of their popularity among masses.
Medical Records and SDH
The issue of monitoring family’s health condition is out of the question nowadays due to the tendency of introducing electronic notes, so the article “My medical records are still on paper –– should I be worried?” by Paul Taylor greatly addresses various social determinants of health by diversifying the recording systems. The question of the article is the relevance of providing paper records instead of integration of electronic databases. The solution to the issue is seen clearly through mentioning the peculiarities of work to every separate doctor – it is rather challenging, but is very promising. Professionals may be too busy to transfer their paper notes to the computer, but may be prone to rely on their memories more than try electronic devices.
Nevertheless, the advantages of using electronic systems are impressive – it is easy to search for patients` data through a computer, in a database, instead of searching through lots of papers. In addition it, doctors can easily share their records with those, who deal with healthcare. Digital system of monitoring may improve the health status of a patient by simplifying all processes of information processing. Moreover, the treatment may become enhanced with the use of complex medication, which is based on tests (which should not be duplicated due to the absence of possibility of loss of papers) and results of treatment program (Taylor). Of course, such an approach to recording patient`s data has its deficiencies, which can be caused by improper maintenance of electronic equipment and watch after databases. It all depends on people’s responsibility and preparedness to monitor every innovation available in order to improve the working process at any hospital.
SDH
Social determinants of health, especially the patterns of adoption of enhanced governance over development of equipment and health in general, are mentioned in the article through presenting real life examples. This way, the issue of implementation of electronic recording databases may have both advantages and disadvantages for people: by setting up the guide of improving the whole healthcare industry, separate hospitals (for example, in provinces) avoid mentioning the peculiarities of their working processes. They greatly contribute various deficiencies to the functionality of their electronic systems – introduction of fully operational record systems fails because of lack of patients, who have to be treated in such a way (Taylor). Considering this, many medications end up wasted or missing due to the gaps in the budget. In addition to it, not all healthcare assistants are able to search lots of information in order to find the data needed. It may be caused by their old-fashioned education, which should still be mentioned by their co-workers.
Taking all of it into account, each separate facility should think over the implementation of electronic databases in order to meet or ignore potential benefits, but to stay afloat the healthcare process. There is an option of providing gradual transition among paper recording and the one in electronic form in order to provide all hospital employees with the ability to get proper knowledge in the field of data recording. There should be no priority areas of social determinants of health because of the extreme impact of any kind of changes (political, economic, ethical or financial) towards the person`s physical and mental condition. Being dependent on the decisions made by authorities, people`s lives inevitably change and such a process cannot be stopped by any individual.
Conclusion
In the end, the analysis of current events in Canada may greatly influence a person’s attitude towards news and the journalistic world because of the significant impact it carries to the masses. First of all, the informative function is completed with the knowledge achieved from various articles, where actions and decisions of public authorities have the power to change the lives of others. Secondly, going in one foot with innovations, each person has to achieve the conception of possibility to modify the current state of society – people are able to influence the decisions made by politicians by gathering various petitions and going to meetings. Anyhow, each of us is able to monitor the public life of others and change his or her life according to the reports of achievements or failures of others.
Social determinants of health (SDH) are mentioned in almost every article due to the relevance of providing policy of opened debates for giving people the ability to contribute their health and social status. There is sufficient impact of any kind of changes to the people’s maintenance of business and life in general. Society inevitably changes throughout times under the influence of various cases and decisions made by others, so it is necessary for us all to be in the flow of current changes and news reported by mass media. Different SDH are explicitly mentioned in most news articles in order to coerce people to act and change the society they live in in order to get the better life condition for creating the prosperous future.
Works Cited
Mikkonen, Juna and Raphael, Dennis. “Social Determinants of Health: The Canadian Facts”. YouTube, uploaded by The Canadian Facts, 5 August 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMw_7AWEg4A .
Rider, David. “Councilors’ blast 'short-sighted' decision to block tolls on Gardiner, DVP”. The Star, 27 January 2017, https://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2017/01/27/councillors-blast-short-sighted-decision-to-block-tolls-on-gardiner-dvp.html . Accessed 27 January 2017.
Taylor, Paul. “My medical records are still on paper –– should I be worried?” The Globe and Mail, 25 January 2017, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health-advisor/digitizing-medical-records-is-a-daunting-task-but-its-worth-it/article33762003/ . Accessed 26 January 2017.
