Free Meaning of Diversity Essay Sample
Diversity entails acceptance and respect for other people belonging to different gender, age, sexual orientation, socioeconomic, physical abilities, religious, and political orientations. This means regarding individuals as unique entities, and recognizing their ideological differences. Diversity also involves understanding, tolerating, embracing, and celebrating various dimensions of people. Understanding diversity is highly critical in the achievement of the healthcare objectives (Wise, 2003). Besides, diversity encompasses the origin, education and practice of nurses who also hold different life dimensions. Therefore, diversity in this case refers to cultural, resources, gender, talents, and background differences in the healthcare training and practice.
According to Jones and Roy (2007), diversity in nursing involves understanding and embracing cultural difference of the students, practitioners, and patients. This emphasizes the importance of considering diverse origins and beliefs of the trainees, practitioners, and patients in the hospital. Cultures vary because of the availability of numerous racial and ethnic groups in society. For instance, in the United States, nursing students comprise of white and black individuals. Therefore, provision of training that is culture-sensitive is pivotal in ensuring that healthcare providers perform effectively. Moreover, practitioners ought to handle customers appropriately according to their cultural orientations in order to achieve their institutional objectives (Holtz, 2008).
Difference in socioeconomic backgrounds, among patients and healthcare providers, is another aspect of diversity in the nursing. Members of the medical staff belong to different social and economic backgrounds, and thus this might affect their duties in the hospitals. In addition, the team should also know that patients are diverse; hence, each should be treated appropriately. Understanding the patients’ diversity is essential in the efficient service delivery with an aim of satisfying their needs, and meeting their expectations. With this understanding, health providers should learn to accept, respect, embrace, tolerate, and celebrate their clients’ diversity (Wise, 2003).
In the global health sector, there are certain health issues that are worth considering. One of these health issues is infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and Tuberculosis. First, the number of HIV/AIDS victims is growing every day with more than 4 million people infected every year. According to the UNAIDS, about 33.4 million people globally were living with the virus by 2008. Besides, within the same year, a total of 2 million died of the virus. Likewise, Malaria is another global infectious illness issue that kills thousands of people every year. For instance, the UNAIDS estimated a total of 843, 000 deaths of the Malaria victims. What is more, Tuberculosis is another worldwide infectious disease that kills about 1.3 million victims, and approximately 9.4 million new infections every year.
According to Holtz (2008), another health issue is the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) among individuals in the world. Many people are losing their lives to the diseases every year. In fact, reports indicate that the total number of deaths every year is estimated to be over 10 million. In 2005 alone, 17.5 million people lost their lives to cardiovascular diseases. This is a representation of about 30% of all the worldwide deaths. The occurrence of the disease is also diverse depending on the socioeconomic situation of the victims. For instance, 80% of CVD happen in the low and middle-income regions compared to the high-income level countries in the world. With these facts, it is explicit that CVD is a health issue whose prevalence varies from one socioeconomic status to another.
In conclusion, diversity in healthcare entails respecting, accepting, tolerating, celebrating the patients’ and practitioners' resources, talents, gender, background, and political differences. Understanding people’s diversity in healthcare is essential to the achievement and enhancement of the institutional goals as well as meeting the customer needs. Additionally, some of the health issues include the infectious diseases, such as, Tuberculosis, Malaria, and HIV/AIDS. Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are other leading health issues whose prevalence varies from one Socio-economic background to another, age and sexual orientation.