Book: iv "Foundations of Global Health & Human Rights"
When I (really) was a student nurse, advocacy was an important facet of patient care. Not surprising in a Victorian asylum (Winwick Hospital). Institutional care was literally, the order of the day and night. New initiatives (individualised care) included personal clothing, not what could be found on the shelves of the linen room (and watch for the cockroaches too); but knowing the patients to the extent of exercising the tailor's eye of knowing what would fit.
This was twenty years before the UK Human Rights Act 1998, and the focus too upon consent and mental capacity. In the 1990s - 2000s nurses as advocates was questioned. Now while clearly not a return, there is a need for mental health nurses and future practitioners in particular to reassess this role, in partnership with patients and team members with lived experience.
What about the book? Yes! Well, a reason for nurses to advocate, is to ensure patients and communities are aware of their rights. So accustomed to the demand - supply equation and the politics of the healthcare market, we miss the deeper historical development of the 'rights holder' and 'duty bearer' (Figure 2.1, p.49).
individual
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Rights holder (Awareness, Access to Information, Literacies) |
Demand of Rights (Data) |
Actions to Realize Rights (Social Justice?) |
Duty bearer (Policy, Reporting, Accountability) |
Foundations of Global Health & Human Rights. (2020) Lawrence O. Gostin and Benjamin Mason Meier (Eds.), Oxford: OUP. ISBN: 9780197528303.
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