Health and Social Care

Every single person in this world has life experiences, challenges, thoughts, and situations that play a significant role in their learning. All past experiences in our life are irreversible and uncontrollable; however, they influence and somehow predetermine our present and future. Therefore, it is necessary to look back and examine issues that we faced in the past. The number of issues and experiences that we are exposed to during our lifetime is limitless. This is because we all view the world around us from different angles. In my entire life, I have been an exceptionally lucky individual. I have always been surrounded by loving and caring parents, faithful friends, relatives, and numerous acquaintances from different countries with whom I interact through the Internet.
My adventures in a foreign country, Australia, where I was to further my studies, comprise the most valuable experiences in my life. I went to this country to improve my knowledge and get more exposure in my field of study. Considering that my field of study is health-oriented, this was really significant in helping me to develop my skills. I found myself in a new environment with a different language, religion, and beliefs. The new environment was completely different from the one in which I had been brought up. In Australia, I learnt so many social skills that helped in my interactions with students from different countries.
In Australia, I learnt an important life skill, which is decision-making. I managed to acquire this useful skill with the help of an African tutor who always emphasized the importance of proper decision-making. In fact, he used to say that it is a personal decision to either pass or fail in an examination. According to him, proper decision-making brings excellent rewards in the end. On the other hand, unfavourable decision-making has disastrous effects. While he was training us on this basic unit, this tutor emphasized the caution that should be taken in order to achieve lifelong stability in interpersonal relationships (Fink 2003). The application of life skills in all my endeavours has been remarkably vital in my personal life.
My life experience in a foreign country gave me an opportunity to be exposed to life from a new point of view. At first, I experienced a culture shock. It was hard to get used to people’s mannerisms in eating and maintaining personal relationships. In Australia, I realized that it is so easy to get along with other people, especially when an individual is so keen on minding their own business. This experience taught me to interact with people from other countries and races. I found that so many people reasoned the same way as I did. I realized that despite differences in culture and origin, all people around me generally had the same moral values. The most important lesson that I learnt was that a morally upright person can live comfortably in the company of any person regardless of their origin or race.

I also met people who were more reasonable and visionary than me. These people inspired me to work together so that I could change my irrational patterns of thinking. This experience helped me to realize the importance of working together in unity, especially in a group of people with common interests. I understood that an individual’s achievement of goals is also dictated by several factors beyond their control. These factors may be natural or unnatural. They entail issues such as lack of resources, attitude, and the environment in which different people live.
Another significant memorable experience in Australia during my study there was a job interview. I did attend a job interview so that they could assess my readiness for the outside world after the completion of my degree. The interview focused exclusively on my academic profile, and this taught me the importance of having a standard academic profile. This served as a powerful learning experience, sine it made me understand my goals, ambitions, and values. In the classroom environment it is not possible to learn all these. For this reason, I made use of interactions with people and institutions as a tool to make my social skills better and better whenever I had a chance. As a result, my learning experience in Australia was instrumental in shaping and developing my personality. I learned a lot of many core values, attitudes, and ways of thinking that helped to become the person I am at the moment.

Problems Related to My Work

In my field of work as a social health worker, I experience some challenges. These challenges may be direct or indirect, depending on the nature of the situation at hand. In my field of work, I have a wide range of key responsibilities. These responsibilities should be honoured to the letter before I think of saying that I am perfect and I love my job. Among others, my main objective is to keep the interests of my patients first before anything else. I should also be able to offer the highest quality service to people of the community, considering that my job is a community-based one (Ferman 2010). Another duty assigned to me by my career is the ability to respond to emergencies at any time with minimal supervision. It is also my duty to offer guidance and counselling to psychologically disturbed patients to help them to come back to their previous state of mental stability. Also, my task is to understand society in its broad perspectives. I should be able to assess different people’s modes of thinking, their world views, and opinions concerning public health.
Lack of enough medical personnel and resources is a situation that should not be ignored when analysing factors that prove to be so challenging in matters related to societal health. Resources that should be used by the personnel such as medicines and education books should be made available. The government ought to increase the number of people working in the field of public health and provide proper working conditions. This would lead to realize the dream of having all health cases attended.

One of the key problems experienced in my career is misunderstanding of patients. Some patients, especially Illiterate ones, sometimes misunderstand the intentions of health workers. They view health workers with suspicion. Once I witnessed a case of an old man who was being treated by a young lady, who was the age of his daughter. The old man was sceptical about the professionalism of the young lady. This is a serious challenge, and it may decrease a worker’s self-esteem. Also, some traditions are inspired by the belief and notion that old people are filled with knowledge and wisdom. This world view is not always correct because old people need some professional help. This mode of thinking should also be discouraged. This may reduce the effectiveness of mental health workers.
Another challenge encountered in my field of work as a social health worker is the fast spread of HIV /AIDS. Despite our numerous efforts to sensitize people on the danger of HIV/AIDS, the disease has continued to spread rapidly. We have tried to counsel people on the importance of being faithful to one single partner. The government, the United Nations, and non- governmental organizations have continued to fight this disease, which has not been quite successful. This is because people’s nature and the extent of ignorance, particularly in illiterate people.
During my counselling sessions as a social health worker, I happen to find families which are significantly affected by drug abuse. In this sense, it has come to our realization that almost in every family at least one person suffers from harmful effects of drug abuse. Drugs that are locally available in the community are badly abused. For this reason, it becomes so hard for social health workers to fight the plight of drug abuse. The government should combine efforts with international organizational such as NACADA to counter drug abuse (Hahn 2008).

Objectives in Work Situations

My field of work has a series of well-written objectives, aims, missions, and visions. In my career, I personally have a vision of stable and healthy society without strains. At the family level, I have a mission to restore peace and sense of reason in society. Some other objectives of social work specifically involve maintaining stability and restoring health status in society.

What is more, working in this field, you must have an objective and a strong desire to help people and improve their lives. Social workers are assigned the duty to help people who face social challenges. It is also an objective of a health worker to solve problems and assist in life threatening situations. Social workers should be able to prevent the fast spread of HIV/AIDS and the abuse of drugs and substances especially among the youth.
Another task of medical and health social workers is to provide psychological support to families, people, or vulnerable groups of population so that they will be able to counter acute, chronic or terminal illnesses such as AIDS. They are also assigned the duty to counsel patients who are mentally ill, advice family caregivers, and plan for needs of patients even after they leave the hospital. In order to help achieve these objectives in my field of work, I need a lot of support from various practitioners.
The first and foremost institution that I need support from is the government through the ministry concerned. Perhaps the government should launch programs to counter health issues such as HIV/AIDS, cancer, and abuse of drugs and substances. The government and non-governmental health organizations should support the health sector so that society achieves a presumed level of stability. As a result of their participation, patients’ cases will be addressed  immediately. Improving the levels of literacy and education by government ministries and organizations concerned is also extremely vital (Helman 2007). When the state increases the levels of literacy, the health sector is also likely to improve. With a greater population of literate and educated people than the existing one, there could also be more skilled labour force that can be recruited in this field of social health.
To measure the level of my success, I would pay close attention to the rates of HIV/AIDS and the number of cases of drug and substance abuse. My success would also be gauged by societal responses such as reduced rates of crime. With achieved rates and the sense of stability, my work field would experience remarkably stable times. By analysing work schemes in my office, I would be able to measure the level of my success. With strict work schemes and proper record keeping, I am sure that this would not be hard. The field of public health should not be ignored because it plays a crucial role, especially in developing a healthy and educated community.