Cross-cultural Health Perspectives and Health Care Frontline Workers

Cross-cultural Health Perspectives and Health Care Frontline Workers
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The importance of frontline health workers and why they are essential
Frontline health care workers serve a substantial role in providing some of the necessary health care services, especially at the community level. So far, they have turned out to be effective and are now being considered a desirable option by most countries to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC). The front-of-the-line healthcare workers are usually the first, if not the only, point of contact for most healthcare system patients. These individuals can assist in expanding preventive and curative services to the population of patients that remain underserved. According to a recent systematic review, this cadre of health workers provides the care that is effective almost close to that offered by doctors. Their roles include the treatment of common infections and immunizations in the communities. Frontline healthcare workers also stand as the primary source of information in the communities and have contributed to the prevention, detection, and response to the leading diseases ("Frontline Health Workers," 2021). They sincerely cannot replace the doctors all the same. Still, they complement these doctors and, as a result, make the care awarded to the people both effective and affordable ("WHO | What role do health workers at the frontline of service provision play towards universal health coverage?", 2021).
The COVID-19 pandemic hit the soldiers' Home in Holyoke, and this was attributed partly to the neglect demonstrated by the home's leadership. Some members of staff and the families of the patients had submitted complaints about inadequate staffing and lack of protocols to prevent falls by veterans at home, with the workers' union describing the facility as “chronically understaffed” ("Report: Federal staffing standards for nursing homes leaves Soldiers' Home on shaky ground," 2021). However, the administration failed to heed these pleas and instead allowed patients showing symptoms of the virus to share facilities with other patients. The leadership represents the final authority in this facility. Their neglect and poor decisions resulted in the devastating loss of several veterans' lives and the infection of over a hundred others, including health workers. Therefore, the soldiers' home's leadership should be at fault for not heeding the calls for change and failing to come up with regulations and measures that would have prevented the spread of the virus.
The staff would have prevented deaths and infections in the Soldiers' Home if only a few actions were taken. Disease prevention is defined as specific interventions for early prevention and minimizing the effects a disease will have in case of an outbreak. The frontline health care workers would have spread information on the virus, COVID-19, and this would have sensitized the veterans to practice preventive behavior toward the prevention them from contracting the virus. Aside from information, the health workers with the aid of the administration could have followed the guidelines put in place for the prevention or containment of th...