Custom «HIV / AIDS Discrimination» Essay Paper Sample

Introduction

Medical health care law provides for many aspects that cover for a person's health condition and well being. Citizens' health care is secured through the medical care law. However, there have been some loopholes that need to be looked in to ensure that all people in the country are provided with the best medical care despite the class they are in terms of social status and their financial status. Patients who suffer with the HIV/AIDS scourge have, however, faced difficulty in obtaining the medical attention they require in order to carry on with their daily lives normally. This has been attributed to various reasons that will be discussed in this paper.

This paper explores the HIV/AIDS scourge in relation to the provisions of the medical health care law and whether they are relevant in the practice of the medical practitioners and patients when offering and receiving medical attention.

Discussion

HIV/AIDS is a disease that affects all people regardless of the status that one owns in the world. It does not exclude the rich from the poor, the male from the female, children from adults or whites from blacks. It infects any person without discrimination just like other diseases do. However, in the treatment of HIV/AIDS medical practitioners have been found to discriminate patients on the basis of the kind of their diseases (Beyrer and Pizer, 2007).

Patients who are infected with the HIV/AIDS disease are found to be discriminated by medical practitioners when trying to seek medical attention. This is especially when the patients come from poor backgrounds or low social status families in terms of monetary capacity.  The medical practitioners tend to blame the infection on the patients misbehavior and promiscuity which may not be true although it happens. It is for this reason that the medical health care law has stipulates the right of all people infected with HIV/AID to receive medical attention without discrimination or favoritism of any sort (Centre for AIDS Development, Research and Evaluation, 2004).

People in the society who suffer with HIV/AIDS should be treated as equal human beings despite their condition. This is because all of them did not want to be infected despite the role they may have played in their infection of the disease. HIV/AIDS does not make them of lesser human beings who lack anything that others have. They should be treated with the same respect as other human beings and accorded the same treatment like others. This is what should happen in all medical facilities.

Investigation on the topic concerning the treatment that people with HIV/AIDS get from the medical practitioners in the medical centers is very important. This is because people with HIV/AIDS are people who are at risk and this makes them people who should be attended to by medical practitioners in a respectable and the best way possible. HIV/AIDS issue and the care that people infected with it is an issue that should be put in consideration with a lot of seriousness. This is because it is an issue that affects the whole society. If one is not infected by HIV/AIDS then he is affected (James, 2005).

Investigation into this topic will enhance my position as a health care practitioner in several ways. First as a medical practitioner, I will be able to know the problem that these patients pass through in the medical centers and be able to come up with remedies as a medical practitioner that would help provide them with better services. There are many things that health care professionals assume that can end up in troubling the patients. Through investigation of such a topic with such issues will be handled.

Secondly through investigation of this topic it becomes easier to collect information about patient satisfaction towards the services that they receive. As a medical practitioner I will be able to know whether the services that patients with HIV/AIDS receive are good or bad.  From that, I will be able to improve and become a better medical practitioner whose role is to protect and save lives at all times.

Investigations into the issue concerning how patients with HIV/AIDS are treated in medical centers will enhance my work as a medical practitioner. This is by ensuring that mistakes made by other medical practitioners act as a lesson, and are not repeated thus, making sure that I do not put the lives of patients at risk or in another instance putting my own profession under jeopardy.

It is a good thing that the law has set some measures to protect people who are HIV positive against health care discrimination. Under this law a doctor or dentist is not permitted to refuse to treat an individual because he or she is HIV positive. In addition to that, a patient should not be forced to disclose information that regards his or her HIV status.  When treating patients medical practitioners are required to use universal precautions and protective measures when treating patients with HIV/AIDS. They should not discriminate by using special precautionary measures when treating HIV positive individuals on the basis of discrimination (Barnes and American Law Institute-American Bar Association Committee on Continuing Professional Education, 2001).

Although the law is set out clearly, there are some medical practitioners who still discriminate patients who are HIV positive. They force them to declare their HIV status and threaten them that if they do not tell them they will either test themselves or they will not treat them if they do not reveal their status. After knowing that a patient is HIV positive, some medical practitioners refuse to offer assistance or treatment to them with the pretext that they are busy attending to other patients. This is very wrong and should not happen to any patient in a medical center.

The right to have high standards of physical and mental health is a basic right which includes the right to health care services to any individual regardless of whom he or she is in the society. This makes it mandatory for every health organization, medical insurance organization and health management organization to make it accessible to persons who are HIV positive. The law provides that medical practitioners who discriminate patients on the basis of their HIV status should have their practice license revoked and dealt with according to the law for denying people access to medical care (Dickson, 2001).

I totally agree with the articles because patient discrimination based on their HIV status still exists even in the current world in medical centers. These practices have made many people who are infected with the disease become afraid of seeking medical attention when they need it most. This makes them suffer in their homes and eventually being brought to the medical centers when the disease cannot be controlled any longer resulting to unwanted and careless deaths.

In my practice I will approach the issue with a lot of concern. I will encourage my colleagues to treat these patients with the same respect they would have needed if they were in that situation. Besides that I will advise them to put what they learned and took the oath for to practice. I will act as an example by treating each and every patient as a person who needs help like the others. I will treat them with the same respect by encouraging them to give feedback to me of whether the services they receive are up to their expectation.

Conclusion

All patients require attention and treatment that is good and that which will make them free to give information that would lead to their well being. The law has ensured that all patients are treated with the same respect they deserve. However, we he medical practitioners need to play our part in ensuring that the law is put in practice in the way we treat patients regardless of their HIV status.