Anti-Vaxxer Sympathy

[Aractus]

I'm tell you that it's morally wrong to blame patients for the failings of healthcare delivery.

I know what you're telling me. I disagree with your view on the matter, because I know for a fact that in many cases it isn't a "failure of health-care delivery", it's people latching on to something a celebrity said on a talk-show who take up the cause themselves, reading biased literature along the way, and deliberately avoiding unbiased information. Those people do not deserve my respect, and whether or not you think I'm moral or immoral doesn't really matter to me.

You can disagree all you want, it's not "my view". It doesn't matter what the reason is, you cannot blame patients for not achieving a healthcare goal. Expecting patients to conform automatically is a form of assimilation.

Here is an example: "A deep mistrust of hospital systems means that many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continue to delay treatment." (Best & Dredericks [Ed.]. 2014. Yatdjuligin. p. 230.)

Here's another example: "Health promotion focuses on achieving equity in health. Health promotion action aims at reducing differences in current health status and ensuring equal opportunities and resources to enable all people to achieve their fullest health potential. This includes a secure foundation in a supportive environment, access to information, life skills and opportunities for making healthy choices. People cannot achieve their fullest health potential unless they are able to take control of those things which determine their health. This must apply equally to women and men." (Ottawa Charter, 1986).

The way that healthcare is delivered determines its accessibility. Here's another example:

"We define non-clinical aspects related to the way individuals are treated and theenvironment in which they are treated as responsiveness1. WHO’s review of the patient satisfaction and quality care literature2 led to the identification of eight domains of responsiveness. These domains or broad areas of non-clinical care quality are relevant for all types of health care including personal and non-personal health services, as well as the population’s interaction with insurers and other administrative arms of the health system. There is empirical evidence to suggest that there is a positive association between health outcomes and responsiveness.  Notwithstanding this relationship, human rights law argues that these domains of health systems are important in their own right3." (WHO 2005).

And you can continue reading to your heart's content.

You haven't even established to me that a significant proportion of people who fail to vaccinate their children do so because they are "anti-vaccine", and you haven't even provided a coherent mechanism for determining who really is "anti-" and who isn't among people who don't vaccinate. Therefore it is illogical of you to target an extreme sub-group of this group which you haven't even established actually exists in any meaningful capacity. And even if you had, as I've pointed out to you, it's not their fault they have the "wrong view". They have been misinformed, and it is the healthcare services that have failed to communicate the message effectively to them.

Again this isn't "my view". I'm stating the conventional wisdom of the healthcare professionals. In the past there was patient-blaming, and that viewpoint is being stamped out. In many places it is not tolerated under any circumstances, and you would have your employment terminated without notice if you behaved that way. For example, if you receive a person who has overdosed on Ice is isn't your place as a nurse to judge their condition as "self-inflicted harm" or "patient stupidity" or anything else, and if you were caught behaving that way you would be fired. That kind of attitude from doctors is one of the things that can cause patients to lie to their doctors about their conditions, or delay treatment, etc.

Actually, it's the extremes that I'm addressing.

It doesn't matter. Patient-blaming is not tolerated in health services. You can blame organisations that spread misinformation, but you can't blame people who read that information and become persuaded by it.

I already explained to you there is not just one reason why a person doesn't vaccinate their child. Put it this way - let's say you open a business and you sell a product that you think the public wants. And potential consumers come to you, and some of them are put off because you are mean, arrogant, forceful and disrespectful. From your point of view it's "their fault" that they don't want your service, but from their point of view you didn't earn their trust, and because of their experience they don't want to buy products from your company.

This idea that patients are to blame for not seeking and receiving the medical advice and services that they need is WRONG. It's backwards.

Except that many are, including the lady in the OP's video.

The lady in the OP's link had a mistrust in the health system because of a previous negative experience, which is exactly consistent with what I said.

The fact that she is willing now to have her child vaccinated - but not in a school - should tell you two more things. 1. That you can't just expect people to accept the service method you provide. It's perfectly reasonable that parents don't want their children receiving medical care in a school, or they want to be more involved, or they want to see their family doctor. 2. That somebody should be following up with her to arrange an alternative arrangement for her child's vaccination. Again you cannot and should not expect patients to automatically recognise what they need to do. Ideally the school should be following up with this and ensuring there is access to an alternative option - after all in some places in the world (such as the USA) you cannot access health services for free and this is a well know access barrier to low income people (I won't provide any more links in this post, but you can easily look this up on WHO or in journals).