Health Issue and Advocacy Assignment

Health Issue and Advocacy Assignment

Heath advocacy emerges as a critical approach to help individuals and organizations address or manage challenges encountered in practice. Social workers and nurses commonly serve advocacy roles, navigating complexities in healthcare systems to promote wellness. They empower patients to access affordable, quality, and effective care services. Also, nursing professionals can advocate for themselves through a wide range of activities to highlight concerns in workplace environments. For instance, they may influence decision-making, mentorship, and collaboration with leaders on critical decisions that directly affect the practice environment. The paper's focus is to discuss a health issue of prolonged standing that requires nursing profession advocacy.
The Issue and Necessary Health Policy
Health issue: - prolonged standing is a significant hazard for healthcare staff. Perioperative clinical workers such as the instrument and circulating nurses stand for long hours, almost throughout their shifts. At the same time, this has related adverse effects on health, wellness, and functionality. According to (Soylar and Ozer (2018), standing for an extended period is linked with potentially dire outcomes, including lower back and leg pain, discomfort, cardiovascular issues, fatigue, and pregnancy complications. The nurses' feet are most affected, followed by knees, thighs, hips, and body lower back. Muscles on the neck, legs, and back are vital in supporting posture, and it is most likely that severe symptoms may extend, causing chronic problems.
Necessary health policy: - Promoting staff movements and exercises in a healthcare organization would be a solid interventional approach to avoid standing for long hours while encouraging self-care practices. Reducing the risks associated with prolonged stand imply adopting healthy workplace routines, healthier lifestyles, and behaviors. The policy considers movements and exercises crucial in tackling sedentary lifestyles and vital in countering musculoskeletal disorders- a growing evidence-based issue in workplaces (Moreira et al., 2021). Through this approach, employers are encouraged to raise awareness or empower employees to remain active and self-care recognizant.
Significance to Nursing
Due to healthcare facilities being overloaded, caregivers have increased demand to work longer hours than usual. Other compounding issues include staff shortages that compel the existing workforce to overwork. As such, hospital nurses confront challenging times as the physical demand of roles, tasks, and jobs are beyond measures that professionals hardly recognize fatigue experienced on legs. Consequently, nurses' leg pain is typical at the end of shifts, along with other reported symptoms like swelling (Yun et al., 2018). Developing varicose veins is a critical health risk to be aware of, and it has been noted to affect staff in the nursing profession. Standing for a long reduces blood flow into muscles, causing an inflammation of veins that leads to ankles or feet swelling. Therefore, adopting a health policy on the issue is relevant in nursing to advocate employees' workplace health promotion and self-care.
Stakeholders Concerned with the Health Issue
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