Leadership in Nursing Practice
The health care system is increasingly developing and changing. Therefore, since nurses are also part of this system, they are expected to embrace these changes by influencing health policy development instead of just implementing them. The influence of nurses on health policy is crucial in protecting the quality of care by ensuring access to pertinent resources and opportunities (Blank, Burau & Kuhlmann, 2017). However, there is a concern about nursing professionals’ lack of representation in the health care policy making despite the fact that nurses represent the largest profession within the health care industry. Essentially, the explanation for this phenomenon has elicited different reaction. Consequently, this paper takes an argument against the suggestion that this concern is attributed to gender inequality.
Admittedly, recent studies indicate systematic gender discrimination and inequity in health education and employment systems. As a result, gender inequities and discrimination have created system inefficiencies that hinder the development of active workforces required to respond to the present day’s crucial health care needs (Newman, 2014). However, the correlation of gender inequalities and lack of nursing professional’s representation in health policy development is disputed because most nursing graduates, including women who make up majority of nurses, are adequately trained on policy areas to influence health policy. In particular, the nurses have been extensively involved in acquiring experience in policy development, having many role models to motivate nurses, continuous development of skills, political activism, support from professional organizations, and delving in research to expand knowledge (Shariff, 2014). Therefore, given all these resources, it beats logic to advance gender inequality as an argument for women nursing professionals’ lack of representation in the health care policy. Instead, nursing professionals should effectively use these resources to create health policy development awareness to put them in better to contribute to policy development.
References
Blank, R., Burau, V., & Kuhlmann, E. (2017). Comparative health policy. New York, NY: Macmillan International Higher Education.
Newman, C. (2014). Time to address gender discrimination and inequality in the health workforce. Human resources for health, 12(1), 25.
Shariff, N. (2014). Factors that act as facilitators and barriers to nurse leaders’ participation in health policy development. BMC nursing, 13(1), 20.
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