It is clear to see the negative for both short and long-term health consequences and the increases in the mortality rate are the direct cause for the living condition for street youth. But still the connection between the street youth and health goes much deeper. Due to the risk factor that leads many people to be homelessness are also a risk factor for their bad health, an example of this is the poverty and substance abuse.
With the Canadian universal health care, there are still many problems with it, and some of it are also related the barriers that many street youth face just to get access for the health care services and sometimes, many youth homelessness is incapable of accessing most times. Under the Canadian universal health care system, it explains how all individuals are to be covered and provided regardless of their financial status. In Toronto a research study was conducted on 1169 homeless individual, and one of the result from the research explain how non-financial barriers one of the issues that were persistent in keeping many homeless people from accessing health care system. The study explain how about 17% of the participant clarify how they had unmet need from the health care system. This issue was due to the number of the non-financial barriers that the researcher identified within the study, which contain the constant need for food, shelter, the lack of transportation and the feeling of stigmatization (Hwang, Ueng, Chiu, Kiss, Tolomiczenko, Cowan, Levinson, & Redelmeier, 2010, p. 3). Also, due many youth being homeless, the lack of a permanent home also prevents many from obtaining a health card, which cause barriers such getting an appointment with a doctor to get the medical treatment they required for their health. Because of this barrier, it makes challenging for many street youth to access the primary health care and the follow up treatment needed, and also the health care provided to for many homeless individual is most concentrated in emergency departments (Power, 2 2008), which are sometime the last resort for many street youth who are unmet health care need for progressively worsen and become life threatening, because of the delay of accessing the treatment needed. This is an unsuccessful process for addressing the long -term of the health issues of many homeless individual and it also have an impact on to the Canadian health care system due to it being costly.
Various Policy Options
Many arguments stand the existing health care system does not efficiently address the health care that is needed for homeless people (Currie, Greaves, Golden, & Latimer, 1999, p. 103). Many assumed that people who have the access to the health care system are usually have a stable housing and social support in place, but this is not the case for many homeless individual, it is the opposite. Which can a problem for the health care system. The most expressed solution to the issue for homeless people are modified primary care tactics and housing solutions.
Modified primary care tactics fall under health policy, it explores the difference between homeless people who have access to primary care than non-homeless individual accessing it. This included thing like the illness that many homeless face and number of financial and no-financial barriers that prevented them from access the health care. To solve the problem, it needs to address the barriers that it will facing. Some of the barriers include the ability to provide care to people who lack a provincial health cards, providing care without the needs of medication or the supplies of medication that is not be covered by the health care system, providing better transportation ,the providing better service that homeless individual faced who are living in certain areas and the changing of health care provider to be more understanding ad trustworthy to homeless individual. So many of them don’t feel being stigmatization that could keep form receiving better (Shortt, Hwang, Stuart, Bedore, Zurba ; Darling, 2008)
Short et. al (2008) research about collection on primary care models and look at the three alternative models of primary care that be better for the care of homeless individual. The first model is “targeted standard facility/clinic site,” was based off of research that was conducted in he United states. The characteristic of the clinic is the same as any family physician s office, which include the focus on immediate care for acute illness, screening and give health education. as for homeless need, most clinic are often located near shelters having a schedule hour from daytime to evening. The purpose of this model is to help integrate users into the health care, while it also providing care to patient, so many would not have to resort to visiting the hospital emergency department.
The second model is “fixed outreach site,”, which is like the first model due to focus on its service areas, however the different of it form the pervious one is that it provides care in a location that will be more accessible to people who are not or reach out for care. Most of the fixed outreach site location are usually located with shelters, community drop-in centres, and transitional housing settings. In addition of providing immediate care to many homeless individual, one of it main goal of fixed outreach site is to inspire repeat use of health care services by patients to restore them into the health system. Many outreach clinics are also connected to many health and social agencies as a way for providing better care services.
The last model, “mobile outreach service,” is one of the model that is helpful to homeless individual than pervious model, due to it operates from vehicles at sites such as on the street. However, some of the disadvantage that this model have is unable to provide a wide array of services due to absence of space and equipment. Some of the mobile outreach service include diagnosis, screening, prevention, education, and referrals to other agencies and most of this service are often lead by a nurse practitioner teams
Best services for writing your paper according to Trustpilot
