Policy Power and Politics in the Healthcare Industry

The foremost determination of this essay is to focus on the policy power and politics in the healthcare industry. This essay will be highlighting all the policy and environmental aspect related to the healthcare industry, all the potential skills and knowledge relevant to the topic are discussed in details in this essay (Marmor 2017). The writing will guide the readers to know about the importance of the business decisions in healthcare industry which are related to the political environment. The existing government health policies and the implementation of those policies based on a specific case are described in details in this essay. The negligence and the acceptance of those government policies and their impact on the citizens are described in the essay in such a way that it guides the readers to understand the importance to follow those rules and regulation in order to main the national health and security (Miller and Rose 2017). The challenges and issues related to the flesh eating ulcer in Victoria are discussed in this essay. The influence of the different kinds of stakeholders of the healthcare industry such as the internal stakeholders as well as the external stakeholders and their role and responsibility during the crisis is highlighted in this paper with prime importance.

The prime objective of this essay to understand the power of media in influencing the health policy. The extensive development in the field of science and technology resulted in the growth of different kinds of media, and each of them is used for different kinds of purposes. These days media are used for interacting as well as building activist community and engaging people for different kinds of activities so that essential topic of discussing which may be related to national security such as prevention of an epidemic disease (Patel and Rushefsky 2016). Effective solutions can be expected with the use of media. Huge number of people may get involved in an interaction and propose their problems in front of the media.

Before highlighting the power of media it is very important to know about each minute details of the chosen topic. The essay will be focussing on the outbreak of the flesh eating ulcers in Victoria.

The outbreak caused huge panic amongst the people all around Victoria also. The health departments of Australia were accused of inaction during that time of crisis which is the main concern of this paper. Every exploding epidemic needs to be taken special care by both the governmental as well as the non-governmental organisations in order to contain the epidemic but in this case the Australian government did not focus this issue with importance which is the main reason that this epidemic is spreading in the surrounding areas of Victoria (Gostin and Wiley 2016). The reason behind this epidemic as well as its preventive measures was need to set and solved by the authorities but negligence worsened the situation. This mysterious disease is tangentially increasing over the years due to the lack of research funding issues. The symptom of this disease is also very scary as most of the patients cannot hold on their nerves by seeing those external ulcers (Jacobs and Skocpol 2015). The prime cause of this mysterious disease was found to be some sort of bacterial infection. There were around 275 report cases of this flesh eating ulcers in 2014 and were around 66 reported cases in 2013 so it can be said that this epidemic is slowly increasing its reach.

The Outbreak of Flesh Eating Ulcers in Victoria and Governmental Negligence

This micro aero philic bacterium was first observed in the African country of Uganda in 1897 and was acknowledged in 1948 by MacCallum in Australia (Murphy 2017). Buruli generally reproduces during the dry seasons of the year especially the summer which is the reason why preventive steps should have been taken the concerned authorities before the summer itself. Countries like Ghana and Cameroon also have these bacteria which causes tissue death in a human body.

The negligence of the health and human service department of Australia is focussed in this paper and these problems could have been solved long ago with the help of the media personalities as they are found to be an influential factor regarding any decision making strategies of all the governments all over the world.

The health policies of Australia should be implemented in such a way that it can safe guard its citizens from these major health issue, new policies should be adopted by the government so that these issues can be checked in the initial stages itself rather than solving it while it extends it limits as that will nor not very much economical from the point of view of the government so they need to take all the possible steps to contain those issue. These were confusions about the cause of this mysterious disease and the national agencies were also not focussing on the issues with prime importance (Blank, Burau and Kuhlmann, 2017). The political agenda of the government and the other important aspects regarding the rules and regulations of the government were having a negative effect on this issue. Initially based on the researches it was found that the mosquitoes were the reasons behind this epidemic, so huge funding was required both for research purposes as well as for the solution of the problems. The transmission pathways of this disease were very much needed to be identified as fast as possible.

This mysterious disease was first noted in Victoria in the year 1930 but the problem escalated in the year 2012 when this infection travelled from one place to another in Australia impacting huge number of people (Barr 2016). The disease spread from the Bellarin peninsula to the Mornington peninsula and according to reports, the disease is slowly grasping the entire Australian nation. Infected possums are given special treatment by the Australian Health care departments in order to stop the spreading of the disease.

Understanding the Power of Media in Influencing Health Policy and Politics

The treatment of this disease is a complex process in the initial stages due to the lack of knowledge about the cause of the disease but the main limitations which are considered in this essay is the lack of awareness of the Australian authorities as did not have any idea how it will be a major source of concern in the coming years. A long course of strong antibiotics are required for the treatment of this disease and the treatment of this kind of disease are only in selected health industries (Hunter 2015). The genetic code of the bacteria known as Mycobacterium ulcerans which was spreading this disease was very difficult to be studied even by experienced researchers. Even after severe examination of an infected human body it was found that this bacterium helps in secreting a toxic chemical when it gets inserted into a human body, it causes death of tissue.

The Australian government was not at all funding any packages to deal with this challenge. Initially they sanctioned negligible packages for this out break but that was not at all satisfactory by any means. The situation was getting worse every month due to the lack of proper health infrastructure in the impacted areas (Allsop 2016). The Health and Human Service departments of Australian claimed that they spent around $800,000 AUD over the spreading of the infection over the years but it was found that the amount was not at all enough considering the limitations and reach of the epidemic. This deadly disease is reaching in the other parts of Australia such as Sydney and Melbourne.

After researching about this issue it was found that this epidemic is caused by a microorganism known as Mycobacterium ulcerans which is very easily found in the Mornington Peninsula region of Australia. The infection spread from this deadly microorganism has a direct negative impact on a human body by rotting the human tissues (Benatar 2016). Australia has been facing this disease for more than a decade now due to its negligence in containing the epidemic during the initial phases of the previous years. This mysterious disease leaves a deadly impact on a human body in the form of Buruli ulcers.

Buruli ulcers causes dead flesh which are filled with fluids, only major surgery can help the patients to get rid of this adverse health condition and even it was found that the problem do not necessarily solve even after successful completion of the surgeries (Meier 2016).  Mis diagnose is very much common regarding this disease as the disease and the concepts associated with this disease is comparatively new as compared to the other types of epidemic diseases.

Conclusion

The infections is tangentially increasing every year in that part of Australia so all the non-governmental private sector organisations as well as the government of Australia should be taking strict measures to contain this issue. All the concerned citizens as well as the health experts all over the world raised their concern regarding this issue (Baum 2016). Strict health regulations should be imposed in the impacted areas so that the disease is not spread throughout the country, all the possible transmission methods of this disease should be identified and blocked with immediate effect.

• Examining the existing governmental policies regarding the healthcare industry and also the ethical and legal frameworks associated with them.
• Identification of the political ideologies related to specific healthcare industry.
• Judgement of effective use of political power in public policy decision making.
• Help to apply competencies, knowledge and skill to examine the existing healthcare infrastructure and policies from the point of view of both the internal and external stakeholders of a particular healthcare industry.
• Evaluation of the role and responsibility of the all the stakeholders of the healthcare industry to remove compliance among the stakeholders which might degrade the services provided to their customers.
• Management of the emerging issues of the healthcare industry with the help of an effective strategic team which can be developed and implemented after media publishes the issues of the hospitals in their platforms as most of the management teams of healthcare industry hesitates to make any more fresh investment in the existing infrastructure (Smith 2017).

Coming back to the understand the power of media in influencing health, policy and politics it can be said that the use of different types of media are very much in trend for different kinds of social activities such as the above health issue (Drummond et al. 2015). Based on the above aspects of the deadly disease it can be said that the government of Australia lacked great deal of ambition and ideology in preventing this disease which could have been dealt with a different approach. The extensive development in the media science could have prevented the situation as most of the people as well as the government officials pays a special attention to all the media activities as it is considered as one of the most important criteria in maintaining the health security of the citizens of the country along with the other kinds of news (Green and Thorogood 2016).

The power of media is a serious concern regarding any type of challenges and issues faced by the government it have the capability of solving complex problems also and the most important problems regarding the spreading if this bacteria was the lack of awareness among the Australian government which might have been increased with the active participation of the media and the influential media personalities as more people are connect thought media these days. Different types of challenges regarding the implementation of new rules and regulations in the healthcare industry can be purposefully solved with the help of the media (Torjesen 2018). Any type of changes such as the resistance to change as well as the other issues related to the passing of the law in parliaments is a lot easier these days due to the active participation of the media. Media is used for different types of purposes these days and utilizing them in implementation of a change in healthcare industry is certainly one of them. The discussions in media is one of the few mediums to reach millions of people at the same time, so it is the duty and responsibility of the governmental organisations as well as the non-governmental organisations to involve more participation of media while taking any critical business decisions. Since a huge number of people are connected in media so it plays an influential role in the forming the rules and regulations for the healthcare industry (Fernández-Luque and Bau 2015). Different types of policies can also be implemented in the health care industry with the help of the media.

This essay states the problem faced from both the perspective of the Australian government as well from the point of view of the impacted patients of the deadly disease. This essay also highlighted the concern of the researchers as well as faced heavy financial problem due to the lack of funds invested by the Australian governments (Eldredge 2014). The essay also gives a brief idea about the type of the micro organisation which is the main reasons behind this deadly disease. This essay also focuses on the transmission mode of the disease. The essay provides in depth knowledge about disease and also the reasons behind its spreading from one part of the country to another part. The statistical data provided in this essay in the form of the impacted patients over the years helps in understanding the importance of the issues also help in evaluating all the possible steps which are still not taken by the authorities to cope up with those issues (Carpenter 2014). The writing help in understanding the power of media while making any kinds of change into a system, the existing rules and regulations of the health and human service department should be changed as per the analysis of this deadly epidemic disease. This essay also helps in acknowledging attitude of the patients who needs to be mentally very strong in order to deal with this adverse health situation. The essay also highlights the mentality of the government bodies of Australia who are very ignorant about this issue in the primitive stages as well as this essay helps in understanding the role of each stakeholder of the healthcare industry.

From the above essay, it can be concluded that media have a great role to play in influencing the health policy and politics. The essay also focuses on the power of media to handle adverse situation due to its vast engagement criteria.  Based on a media article which specifies about the outbreak of the famous flesh eating ulcer it can be said that media could have played a significant role in the first place when the Australian government was neglecting this issue. The possible role of media in healthcare industry is also described in this essay which will be helping the readers of this essay to know about the implementation of the power of media in influencing the health policy and politics.

Reference

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