Responsibility for Funding Refractive Correction in Publicly Funded Health Care Systems: An Ethical Analysis.

Allocating on the basis of need is a distinguishing principle in publicly funded health care systems. Resources ought to be directed to patients, or the health program, where the need is considered greatest. In Sweden support of this principle can be found in health care legislation. Today however some domains of what appear to be health care needs are excluded from the responsibilities of the publicly funded health care system. Corrections of eye disorders known as refractive errors is one such domain. In this article the moral legitimacy of this exception is explored. Individuals with refractive errors need spectacles, contact lenses or refractive surgery to do all kinds of thing, including participating in everyday activities, managing certain jobs, and accomplishing various goals in life. The relief of correctable visual impairments fits well into the category of what we typically consider a health care need. The study of refractive errors does belong to the field of medical science, interventions to correct such errors can be performed by medical means, and the skills of registered health care professionals are required when it comes to correcting refractive error. As visual impairments caused by other conditions than refractive errors are treated and funded within the public health care system in Sweden this is an inconsistency that needs to be addressed.

Having to focus on doing rather than being-nurse assistants' experience of palliative care in municipal residential care settings.

BACKGROUND: Palliative care should be provided, irrespective of setting to all patients facing a life-threatening illness and to their families. The situation and needs of older people differ from those of younger people since they often have several co-existing diseases and health complaints. This implies an extensive need for care and for longer periods of palliative care. The main providers of palliative care for older people are nurse assistants, who are also those with the shortest education. AIM: The aim of this study was to illuminate nurse assistants' experience of palliative care for older people in residential care. DESIGN: The study had an explorative, descriptive design. SETTINGS: Thirteen residential care units in three different districts in a large city in southern Sweden. PARTICIPANTS: Twenty-five nurse assistants selected to represent variations in age, gender workplace and work experience. METHODS: Data were collected from six focus-group interviews and subjected to content analysis to gain an understanding of the phenomenon. RESULTS: The nurse assistants described palliative care as a contrast to the everyday care they performed in that they had a legitimate possibility to provide the care needed and a clear assignment in relation to relatives. Palliative care also meant having to face death and dying while feeling simultaneous that it was unnatural to talk about death and having to deal with their own emotions. They emphasised that they were in need of support and experienced leadership as invisible and opaque, but gained strength from being recognized. CONCLUSION: In order to support nurse assistants in providing high quality end-of-life care, more focus is needed on the trajectory of older peoples' dying, on the importance of involving relatives throughout the period of care provision, and on support when encountering death and dying. There is also a need for engaged care leaders, both registered nurses and managers, to recognize the work of nurse assistants and to support care provision for older people within the framework of palliative care philosophy.