Course 2 of the annual Physiopedia MOOC got me thinking about the systems I am currently working in and gave me a lot to think about.
Course 2 of this week's MOOC focused on rehabilitation in health systems and the complexities of rehabilitation administration. While I have always been aware of the influence of governance on health systems as a whole, I have not really considered the frameworks or policies that affect rehabilitation, either in terms of service development or delivery. For me, the lack of prioritization and funding, which I see every day in my own work context, is an essential factor that I have become aware of. I work in pediatric primary care and we have long waiting lists and under staffing, which greatly affects the type of services we can provide to individuals.
Valentina Pomatto, Inclusion Advocacy Manager Humanity and Inclusion, illuminates this topic in her lecture in the course activity. She points out that rehabilitation services are often underdeveloped or poorly resourced, and are often unavailable or unaffordable for the vast majority of the world's population. This is especially true for people who live in poverty, in rural areas and in countries with low and middle income.
For me, Valentina's presentation underscores the importance of initiatives like Rehab 2030 to strengthen health systems around the world, but also the importance of the role we can play as rehabilitation professionals. The conscious decision to work more collaboratively as a unified professional field to advocate for adequate access to rehabilitation, with the primary obligation not to leave anyone behind, is the only way to truly address inequalities.
I loved this short video on why rehabilitation is important. I think it provides a great thought-provoking idea of what access to rehabilitation is important and the huge impact rehabilitation can have. More importantly to me, the video clearly highlights how the lack of access to rehabilitation, especially early access, can negatively affect both individuals and their relatives.
This, to me, further underscores the importance of universal health insurance to ensure that all people have access to the health services they need, of sufficient quality to be effective, while ensuring that the use of those services does not expose the user to financial difficulties. Even if it currently seems a long way off.
For me, my conclusion from this course was what I can do both to advocate rehabilitation in my work context and to ensure that I follow the principles of rehabilitation. By that I mean that I encourage adaptation, emphasize the ability and am always holistic in my approach to treat the whole person. While our ability to control and influence health systems as a whole can seem challenging, at least I can influence rehabilitation on an individual level by better understanding the health systems I work in and making sure I work with other rehabilitation professionals.
I am pleased to start with course 3 and to take a closer look at rehabilitation infrastructures and the rehabilitation team . I hope it will help me gain a better understanding of the range of rehabilitation teams and allow me to build better relationships that will enable a more collaborative approach to rehabilitation within the services I work in.
This post was written by Naomi O'Reilly, the MOOC manager at Phyisopedia.
