Medical Ethic Topic: Right to Health Care (For or against)

Right to Healthcare
Name
Institution / Affiliation
Right to health care
Access to quality and safe care is crucial in preventing disease, minimizing premature deaths and disabilities, promoting and maintaining health, and achieving health equity to all people. In the United States, for example, every American has the right to access the highest standard of health without discrimination based on their religion, race, and political association, economic or social status –as enshrined in the constitution. According to the World Health Organization (2020), healthcare is the organized provision of medical care by physicians, nurses, clinicians and other medical professionals to people and communities. Quality and safe care play a vital role in enhancing the healthy communities, and if every individual had access to medical care, premature deaths and disabilities would be minimized significantly.
Globally, millions of people lose their lives every year. For example, in 2017 over 56 million people died from chronic diseases such as stroke, cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, tuberculosis, kidney and liver diseases, to name a few (Ritchie & Roser, 2020). Unfortunately, most of these deaths occur prematurely due to inadequate access to healthcare. For instance, in 2016, over 15,000 children under the age of five years died every day (World Health Organization, 2020). On the other hand, 15% of the world’s population have disabilities (World Health Organization, 2020). Currently, the rate of disabilities has been on the rise owing to the ageing populations, and increases in chronic diseases (World Health Organization, 2020). Regrettably, a large number of disabilities are caused by unmet healthcare needs due to less access to health care services. This means that if acce...