Abstract
The 13th target of the United Nation’s Sustainability Development Goal 3 calls for strengthening “the capacity of all countries for early warning, risk reduction and management of national and global health risks”. With the help of examples and practical solutions, this chapter explores two issues regarding this target, inclusiveness and culture, focusing on maternity care in the UK by the NHS. The latest studies on maternal care in the UK show health inequalities affecting safety in childbirth that particularly endanger ethnic minorities. Similarly, social reports display health inequalities triggered by social disparities. Safety reports, national guidelines and recommendations will be critically assessed to understand the preventable measures that should be implemented and what prevents them from being implemented. The chapter looks at some medical training material and the lack of socially inclusive tools for clinical students to practice medicine inclusively. A section discusses clinical trials, which are fundamental in public health for early warnings, effective cures and risk reduction but often lack inclusiveness. The author examines the notion of culture as a social construct and the coexistence of different, sometimes conflicting cultures in clinical settings. It is argued that culture should be nurtured with counterintuitive arguments and by questioning own and system biases. Cultural shifts that can provide respectful, sustainable and healthy working conditions to healthcare professionals to provide quality and safety of care to their patients are hard to achieve. This chapter explores some viable options for cultural shifts to happen.
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Quattri, F. (2023). Cultural Shift in Healthcare and Ethnic Inequality—Professional Responsibilities. In: Fong, B.Y.F., Wong, W.C.W. (eds) Gaps and Actions in Health Improvement from Hong Kong and Beyond. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-4491-0_6
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