Pär SegerdahlSwedish law prescribes healthcare on equal terms for the whole population. Complying with this law is more difficult than one might believe, since discrimination tends to happen unknowingly, under our own radar.

Telephone nursing has been thought to increase equality in healthcare, because it is so easily accessible. However, research has demonstrated inequalities in telephone counseling. Callers are not treated equally.

Given the role of unawareness in the drama, this is not surprising. Despite the best intentions, treating people equally is very difficult in practice. What can we do about it?

If unawareness is a factor and discrimination largely happens unintentionally, I do not think we can conclude that it must be the result of a “bad system.” Even if discrimination arises unintentionally, it is humans who discriminate. Humans are not just their awareness, but also their unawareness.

In an article in the International Journal of Equity in Health, Anna T. Höglund (and four co-authors) investigates awareness of discrimination in healthcare, especially in telephone nursing. Swedish telephone nurses responded to a questionnaire about discrimination and equal treatment. The nurses’ answers could then be analyzed in terms of four concepts: denial, defense, openness and awareness.

Denial: some nurses denied discrimination. Defense: Some acknowledged that care was not always given on equal terms, but said that measures were taken and that the problem was under control. Openness: some of the nurses found the problem important and wished they could learn more about care on equal terms. Awareness: Some clearly saw how discrimination could occur and gave examples of strategies they used to avoid complex discriminatory patterns of which they were aware.

Rather than explaining unintended discrimination as the result of a “bad system,” these four concepts provide us with tools that can help us handle the problem more responsibly.

Anna T. Höglund proposes two complementary ways of viewing the four concepts. You can see them as positions along a line of development where a person can mature and move from denial or defense, through openness, towards the ultimate goal, awareness. But you can also imagine a person moving back and forth between positions, depending on the circumstances.

One recognizes oneself in these positions; unfortunately, not least in the positions denial and defense. The conceptual model developed in the article increases awareness of discrimination as largely a matter of our awareness and unawareness.

The authors add a fifth concept to the model: Action. If I understand them, they do not mean by “action” correcting a “bad system,” thereby controlling the problem. On the contrary, that would appear very much like expressing the defensive position above. (This indicates how much unawareness there is in many bureaucratic attempts to “control” societal problems through “systems,” to which one later refers: “We have taken appropriate measures, the problem is under control!”)

No, we need to continuously work on the problem; continually address ourselves and our patterns of acting. The conceptual model developed in the article gives us some tools.

Pär Segerdahl

Höglund, A.T., Carlsson, M. Holmström, I.K., Lännerström, L. and Kaminsky, E. 2018. From denial to awareness: a conceptual model for obtaining equity in healthcare. International Journal for Equity in Health 17. DOI 10.1186/s12939-018-0723-2

This post in Swedish

We want to be just - the Ethics Blog