NURSING 7124 Management Of Chronic Illness

“Accepting a framework of rights cannot imply simply a selfish attitude on the part of the  individual, claiming her/his own rights while remaining indifferent to the rights of others.  There is a corresponding obligation on every member of the society to respect and support  other people’s rights” (p. 154).  

Conduct a literature review on the need to balance ‘rights’ and ‘obligations’ in contemporary  Australia. Your review should include a discussion of the ‘rights’ and ‘obligations’ of individuals and  governments as key players in the human rights discourse. Drawing on theoretical insights, academic  research and current media reports, the  review should evaluate the extent to which these two key  players have been able to balance their ‘rights’ with their ‘obligations’ towards others and society.

Introduction

Chronic diseases are the leading causes of illness and it leads to disability as well as deaths in Australia. The burden of chronic diseases is increasing at an alarming rate in the country and according to the statistics of the government of Australia one in two Australians are living with any kind of chronic health condition. Even, the chronic health conditions are accounted for even 90% of deaths across the country, according to the report in the year 2011 (Sav, Salehi, Mair & McMillan, 2017). However, government has set various rules and regulations on the healthcare need of the people but at the same time, various rights and obligations of the people living in the country are also there. According to the government constitution of Australia, various healthcare rights of Australians are there. Simultaneously, there should be a balance between the rights and obligation ns in this regard and the following section of this paper discusses the topic in brief.

Chronic illness in Australia

Chronic diseases are the long lasting adverse health conditions with some persistent effects. The impacts of these chronic diseases can hamper the quality of life of the people suffering from it because the diseases not only affect the health, but also the social and economic status also (Barrett et al., 2016). Australian health department has divided the chronic diseases into eight major groups. The job of the healthcare professionals has become more complicated as sometimes people are experiencing two or more diseases concurrently. According to many literatures, healthcare professionals do not find more complexity while dealing with the patients with chronic diseases but they face more difficulties in bringing them to a normal as well as common life like others. Some authors indicated that various factors contribute to the treatment burden of chronic diseases which includes, age, gender, socio-economic status, environment and others (Zwar et al., 2017). Treatment characteristics, dose of medications as well as the family circumstances are also responsible among the factors affecting the treatment of chronic diseases. Again, some other literatures indicated the sociological aspects of treatment burden and it suggests that the burden is not only associated with the workload brought about but also the impact of the workload on the activities of daily life as well as on the identity of patients. For example it can be stated that older adults are more likely to accept the treatment burden when compared to the younger adults (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, n.d).

Literature review

Addressing the chronic diseases is one of the major challenges of the healthcare professionals across the world healthcare system. Chronic diseases are required a supervision and assistance of long time. Evidences from various literatures highlight the importance of reorienting health policies as well as the rules and regulations of government health system towards the chronic diseases and the people suffering from this. Literature suggests that a strong primary care system is always helpful in improving the overall health outcome of the people living in the country (Australian Government Department of Health, 2009). Authors indicated that in the year 1990, a chronic care model was developed as a framework to improve the quality of the healthcare provided by the professionals (NSW government, 2018). This model is an organizational approach to care for the people suffering from chronic health conditions. The model consists of six different elements applicable in the primary health setting. The elements operate within the context of the individual, community, organization of healthcare provider and the healthcare systems. Some literatures suggested that the elements are more likely to improve the health outcome of the people with chronic health conditions when applied in the healthcare system.

Rules and regulations

Australian Government has set up a National strategic Framework for chronic illness that provides the guidance for the development as well as the implementation of various policies, actions, strategies, and services that is helpful in reducing the impact of chronic health disorders among the people living in Australia. This framework also provides a national direction which is applicable to a broad range of chronic conditions found among the people over there. The framework was endorsed by all the health ministers and it was publicly released in the year May, 2017 through the COAG health council (Reynolds et al., 2018).

Statistics and gaps 

According to the statics of World Health Organization, more than 70% deaths occur due to chronic diseases. It directly affects the overall healthcare budget, economy as well as the employee productivity of any country. Health professionals play a major role in preventing chronic diseases as well as in promoting health (Wei & Coumarelos, 2009). People with chronic diseases as well as disabilities suffer from multiple disadvantages and some Australian census data shows that people with ill-health are more likely to be suffered from crime, unemployment, educational attainment and others. Some authors also argued that people suffering from chronic diseases also face multiple types of social as well as economic disadvantages. However, some large-scale legal need surveys measured illness as well as disability status showed that they face a wide range of legal problems that includes problems related to criminal, civil and family laws (Foster & Mitchell, 2015). Although, various literatures and information can be found from various databases regarding the data on chronic illness and rights and obligations of people, but there is a gap in the literatures regarding the acts and laws for the rights and obligations of the people suffering from chronic diseases. However, the main strength of literature review is that various literatures are there containing the information related to chronic illness in Australia (Jaarsma, Cameron, Riegel & Stromberg, 2017).

Conclusion

In the literatures, the writers agree with the needs and laws for the people suffering from chronic illness or disabilities. The review of literatures provided evidences on the facts of chronic illness and consequences of it. On the other hand it also explained the rules and laws set by the Australian government in this regard. However, the literatures contain gaps regarding the rights and obligations of public despite of this. It is obvious, that government intervention and support can be more helpful in preventing the affects of chronic illness which in turn will also be effective in improving the health outcome as well as the economic productivity of the country.

References 

Australian Government Department of Health. (2009). The rights and responsibilities of people with mental health problems and mental illness. Retrieved from https://www.health.gov.au/internet/publications/publishing.nsf/Content/mental-pubs-n-pol08-toc~mental-pubs-n-pol08-2~mental-pubs-n-pol08-2-1 

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (n.d.). Chronic disease—Australia’s biggest health challenge. Retrieved from https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/8f7bd3d6-9e69-40c1-b7a8-40dca09a13bf/4_2-chronic-disease.pdf.aspx 

Barrett, D. H., Ortmann, L. W., Brown, N., DeCausey, B. R., Saenz, C., & Dawson, A. (2016). Public health research. In Public Health Ethics: Cases Spanning the Globe (pp. 285-318). Springer, Cham. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-23847-0_9 

Foster, M. M., & Mitchell, G. K. (2015). ‘The onus is on me’: primary care patient views of Medicare?funded team care in chronic disease management in Australia. Health Expectations, 18(5), 879-891. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/hex.12061 

Jaarsma, T., Cameron, J., Riegel, B., & Stromberg, A. (2017). Factors related to self-care in heart failure patients according to the middle-range theory of self-care of chronic illness: a literature update. Current heart failure reports, 14(2), 71-77. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11897-017-0324-1 

NSW government.(2018, August 23). Your health care rights and responsibilities. Retrieved from https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/patientconcerns/Pages/your-health-rights-responsibilities.aspx 

Reynolds, R., Dennis, S., Hasan, I., Slewa, J., Chen, W., Tian, D., … & Zwar, N. (2018). A systematic review of chronic disease management interventions in primary care. BMC family practice, 19(1), 11. Retrieved from https://bmcfampract.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12875-017-0692-3 

Sav, A., Salehi, A., Mair, F. S., & McMillan, S. S. (2017). Measuring the burden of treatment for chronic disease: implications of a scoping review of the literature. BMC medical research methodology, 17(1), 140. Retrieved from https://bmcmedresmethodol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12874-017-0411-8 

Wei, Z., & Coumarelos, C. (2009). The legal needs of people with different types of chronic illness or disability. Justice issues, (11), 1. Retrieved from https://www.lawfoundation.net.au/ljf/site/articleIDs/8F7E30A44DA0D60ECA2575BB00083A10/$file/JI11_Chronic_illness_web.pdf 

Zwar, N., Harris, M., Griffiths, R., Roland, M., Dennis, S., Powell Davies, G., & Hasan, I. (2017). A systematic review of chronic disease management. Retrieved from https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/119226/3/final_25_zwar_pdf_85791.pdf