Healthcare Safety Nets during the COVID-19 Pandemic Based on Double Diamond Model: A Concept Analysis

The purpose of this study was to analyze the concept of the “healthcare safety net” during the COVID-19 pandemic. Walker and Avant’s process of concept analysis was used in this systematic literature review. The attributes of the concept of a healthcare safety net during the COVID-19 pandemic were found to be: (a) capacity, (b) accessibility, (c) health equality, and (d) education. In consideration of these defining criteria, antecedents to the concept were identified as: (a) the COVID-19 pandemic, (b) health inequalities (internal factors and external factors), and (c) healthcare systems (health insurance, screening, protective equipment, medicine, and medical services). Consequences of the concept were: (a) meeting healthcare needs, (b) quality of life, and (c) a decrease in morbidity and mortality. A healthcare safety net is an important concept during the COVID-19 pandemic. In situations like COVID-19, healthcare safety nets are designed to meet safety needs, improve quality of life, and reduce patient turnover and mortality. Based on the results of this study, the development of standardized tools for measuring a healthcare safety net as well as that of policies and systems for resolving a healthcare safety net in the COVID-19 situation is recommended.

Reproductive justice, abortion rights and social work

Reproductive justice is essential in the struggle to remove health inequalities. Currently, escalating threats to reproductive rights are rarely discussed in contemporary social work literature. Discomfort in the profession about addressing challenges to abortion rights exposes a lack of courage to treat abortion as essential healthcare. A case study of several abortion-focused articles and chapters reveals a strand of ambivalence about taking a progressive stance on abortion. Recent trends demonstrate that reproductive rights cannot be taken for granted. Even when law reform removes some of the barriers to safe, legal abortion, abortion stigma and anti-choice harassment remain potent threats to reproductive autonomy. A case is made for reproductive justice to be central in our drive for health equality. This requires a feminist perspective, moving away from seeing women as merely the object of the social work gaze, too often the focus of scrutiny and judgement.

GLOBAL HEALTH POLICY DEVELOPMENT

Health equality is the goal of global health policymakers (Weiss & Pollack, 2017).In the current political scenario, global health policy Development is facing significant challenges across the globe. Addressing these barriers is a complex task and requires coordination between global organizations across various healthcare domains. Our paper identifies barriers to the development of cohesive global health policy, and offer a few potential remedies in the development process of the same.

Safeguarding health equality for the disadvantaged during the COVID-19 pandemic: Lessons learned for the social work profession

An evaluation of the role played by the social work profession during the outbreak of COVID-19 is necessary. Although social workers have made efforts to address people’s needs during the pandemic, it is worth examining the role they have played in safeguarding health equality. Focusing on the case of Hong Kong, we found that the profession was generally ill-prepared for the outbreak, and in particular, for confronting the attendant social inequalities. We identified three possible reasons for these findings: 1) non-governmental organizations were caught off-guard by the outbreak, 2) there was no clearly articulated intervention agenda to inform practitioners of the roles they should play in such a large-scale crisis, and 3) having become more formalized and standardized, social work services may have become less flexible in responding to emerging community needs. We conclude this article by suggesting three directions that could allow the profession to better pursue its mission during large-scale crises.