The paper's focus is on the elderly population around the world. This is a population that is growing in great numbers around the world in the 21st century. This is also a population that has substantially diversified in the 21st century, with respect to ethnicity, culture, and medical needs. The paper argues for health care that is as diverse as the population it is meant to serve.
Diversity in the Elderly Population
Elderly
There is an abundance of diversity of the newest elderly generation. There is a lack of diversity in the health care coverage for the elderly. This would not exist in the future of health care. It is simply not practical nor ethical to ignore this issue of geriatrics as part of the visualization of the future of health care. Subtracting ethics for those who do not care about the elderly, on a practical level, soon there will be too many elderly around to ignore them and their needs. They will likely become an increasing voice of influence on issues such as this one and others, if only because of their great numbers. Those numbers are projected to continue to escalate.
This author imagines a future of health care where all elderly people have access to free, low cost, or subsidized quality health care. In such a future, the health care for the elderly would be prompt, comprehensive, and highly accessible. In the present, the diversity of the aging population has proliferated around the world with respect to ethnicity and culture, but also additionally with respect to the needs of this population.
The number of older adults in the United States will almost double between 2005 and 2030, and the nation is not prepared to meet their social and health care needs. The baby boomer generation starts to turn 65 in 2011, which will create multiple challenges for the health care system. For one, the majority of older adults suffer from at least one chronic condition and rely on health care services far more than other segments of the population. Additionally, this generation of older adults will be the most diverse the nation has ever seen with more education, increased longevity, more widely dispersed families, and more racial and ethnic diversity, making their needs much different than previous generations. Another problem is the dramatic shortage of all types of health care workers… (Institute of Medicine, 2008, 1)
The sheer number of elderly people provides context, insight, and guidance for us now. It is a practically a guarantee that each one of these elderly persons will require some form of health care provision. If people do not adapt to this surge and change, there will be some effects with which we will unable to handle and others that we will be unable to foresee. Ignoring or not providing adequate, diversified attention to this issue as part of the visualization or plan for future health care, is a mistake that can and should be avoided.
Socially, ethically, and practically speaking, it is very important to care for all generations, the elderly generation included. Older people have more life experience. A number of them offer and share wisdom and perspective gained through their lives. That is a perspective that is priceless and useful, even in today's world. This is a perspective that can only be nurtured and preserved by health care that is as diverse as the present and future elderly population. This means professionals who speak various languages, are culturally competent in various cultures, and are quite literate in the issues facing the diversified, elderly, world population.
Of course, any demographic shift brings with it social and economic challenges, not least for healthcare systems. The notion of a greying population is usually framed in terms of the added demands and pressures they will bring. But although there will be challenges in adjusting, the overall picture is far from bleak if policymakers enact sensible change. (The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2009, 4)
In a fair vision of health care, there is an ethical, efficient, and dynamic system in place to monitor and moderate the health needs of the elderly. In this vision, the health care system promotes different, more ethical attitudes regarding aging in that it is a natural process that people can enjoy and prepare for with greater consideration of ethnic, cultural, and medical diversity. In this hypothetical system of health care, there is more collaboration between gerontologists and specialists in prenatal care, infant and child health -- in fact, in the potential future of health care, people have a more peaceful awareness to address aging from the earliest stages of life, so that aging is not so much of a depressing and fearful process as it is now.
Furthermore, in this future of health care, there is a proportional amount of specialists in the field of elderly care to the population of elderly people; in other words, the geriatrics specialists will not be so vastly outnumbered by their patient pool -- geriatrics gets better marketing and better spin; it will not be an issue people starting thinking about once they reach a certain age or experience a certain health ailment symptomatic of "old age." The growth of the elderly population requires changes in perspective, approach, and ethics. This is a unique population with unique characteristics that distinguish from elderly generations of other time periods, thereby diversifying their gerontological needs.
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