Problems Faced By Health Care Workers With Disabilities
Problems Faced By Health Care Workers With Disabilities
Health care industry is one of the largest industries in American economy and so has a high occurrence of occupational illness and injury leading to disability. Although some workers may have been born with disabilities, most of the workers get disabled while working. Although health care workers are committed to delivery of health care to patients, ironically, they face a tremendous range of health risks than employees of other sectors. In many cases, health care workers are exposed to blood borne and airborne infectious diseases, sharp injuries and other dangers. Furthermore health care job is mentally and physically stressful (Toussaint, 2009) .
Disability among health care workers brings about a number of negative consequences in the way the society views them and their productivity at work. Output by people with disability is relatively lower than those without disability and this has been a major problem in relation to recruitment, retention and promotion. Majority of the employers have a perception that disabled people are costly to their organization given the fact that Americans with disability act states that employees must make accommodations that suit the needs and comfort of employees with disability. As a result of this, employees silently discriminate against people with disability. Health care workers with occupational and non occupational injuries or illness may face challenges because of the misconception by the society that qualified health professionals should not have any mental or physical impairment. Actually many people would prefer the services of health care professionals without any disability to health care professionals with disability. In case of occupational illness, if steps are not taken in time to address the problems, repeated infections might occur and this might lead to severe disabilities thus impacting negatively in the worker’s productivity (Depoy &Gilson, 2004).
The problems with disability in the work environment of health care industry affect health care employees with mental or physical impairment that considerably restricts major life activities and those who have a record of significantly limiting impairment. Disability problems also affect non disabled workers as they also have to adjust their schedule in case where their disabled counterparts are unable to conduct a specific job that needs urgent attention(Toussaint, 2009).
The vision and mission of all health care organization is to deliver quality services. As such, health organizations should ensure that they adhere to legal and ethical requirements. Adhering to legal requirements involves following the stipulated law, policies regarding health care and set rules and regulations of the organization. In this case, organizations are supposed to adhere to people with disability act when dealing with issues related to people with disability. Ethical issues involve actions that are good to human nature. For a long period, people with disability have been considered less productive and this led to discrimination based on their disability but with time and change in policies regarding people with disability, adjustments in work places have been made to suit their needs and the benefits of disabled people have been felt. By addressing the problems of employees with disabilities, health organization will be creating a reputation of being non- discriminatory and this is likely to strengthen their vision in offering equitable services and opportunities. Furthermore, if health workers’ disability problems are addressed by creating a good work condition for them, they will be able to work well and this will be important in achieving organization’s mission of providing quality healthcare. If disability issues among health care workers in not well addressed by health care organizations, there will be prejudice in work places which will in turn hamper provision of quality services(Depoy &Gilson, 2004).
References
Toussaint, J. (2009). Why Are We Still Underperforming?. Frontiers of Health Services Management. September 19, 2010 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5871/is_200910/ai_n39234003/
DePoy, E., & Gilson, S. (2004). Rethinking disability: Principles for professional and social change. Pacific Grove, CA: Wadsworth