It is mostly the communities which have a scarcity of resources on their hands who have to worry most about the cost of healthcare because they are mostly the ones who live in conditions which encourage that adversity in health. So if we say that the poor take on the responsibility of introducing bad health in the society, it is like saying that it is their fault for being poor when in fact it is not.
The responsibility for maintaining that optimal health equally amongst all of the members of the society falls equally on all of us for we have to make sure that these poor people have the resources to pay for healthcare facilities and that they have access to health insurance. So the bottom line is no; the poor cannot be put in the blame for the reason of them not living the most healthy of life when it is in fact us who cannot give them the most appropriate jobs, and the best of the facilities in the country.
There are many stereotypes that we attach to every society which lives in poverty, the first of which is the belief that the poverty that they live in is the cause of their own bad choices, bad decisions and laziness in general. Another stereotype about the poor is that they are unmotivated and they lack in their ethical bearings when compared to the wealthier people. We also seem to presume that the poor people are not as concerned about the education and the health of their children and that this impact of poverty is very long lasting.
The truth of all of these stereotypes aside, they do ultimately come around to impinge badly on the health of these poor people, and that is because of the mental stress that they exert on those less fortunate. A study including 272 adolescents concluded that just like we expect, poverty is linked to increased body mass index, higher blood pressure and higher levels of stress hormones in the body. This is the reason why the researchers concluded that the discrimination that the poor counterparts face is responsible for around 13 percent of the negative impacts on health.
We could promote better health in our communities, but for that, we would have to create certain conditions. For one, there is a need to provide health insurance to all segments of the society so that access to healthcare is not limited to only a few types of people who belong to the society. Additionally, there is a need for us to limit the judgment against the poor so that they could be set free from the pressures of social expectations in addition to the stress of having to balance their income against their very basic needs.
There is a need to create a society where we care about the very basic needs of the people who lack resources to get those necessities; and through no faults of their own. Over and above all of these factors, there is a need for us to give equal weightage to every gender when we stress upon the provision of basic facilities to the poor, mainly that of healthcare. This is because there are many healthcare benefits which are being made available to women of the lower-income communities despite the fact that those facilities have tested and succeeded not on women but on men. In this case, we can hardly make certain that the benefits that the poor women are being given are likely to derive an ideal results.
The poor people suffer the most from adverse health and the rest of the members of the societies that a role to play in bringing about that condition. We can treat it sooner if we have the courage to realize our mistake sooner.
List of References
Booker, K. (2012, July 25). Study: Negative stereotypes about the poor hurt their health. Retrieved from Cornell Chronicle : http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2012/07/negative-stereotypes-about-poor-hurt-their-health
Just Harvest. (January). JUST THE FACTS:Poverty Myths & Stereotypes. Retrieved from 2015: http://www.justharvest.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Just-Harvest-Poverty-Myths-Stereotypes-fact-sheet.pdf
