A community clinic funded by the state and federal governments to serve homeless African Americans and Latinos cannot withstand budget cuts. As a nurse leader in the clinic, I would devise a strategy to convince the government not to cut allocations to the facility. The plan would be to show the large community that will lose health services due to cuts while emphasizing on the benefits reaped so far by the current allocation. The strategy should also highlight any areas that current budget fails to cover and emphasize on proper management of the funds at the clinic.
The plan would cover four key areas, including benefits reaped from existing allocation, deficiencies left by current budget, a highlight of excellent management of previous resources, and a report on the affected population. The most important demographics for the plan comprise age, sex, insurance cover status, education, race or ethnicity, employment, contact information, and medical history (Petrovich et al., 2020). Contact information or location will show the people’s inability to access immediate care and other facilities that enhance quality living. The race, education, employment, insurance status, and medical history will demonstrate how needy the population is to warrant budget allocations by the state. For example, most of the homeless individuals will not be under any private insurance cover.
Advocating for the population must include unique health determinants affecting the homeless society and minority races. Some health determinants are trauma and adverse life experiences in childhood, poor educational outcomes, substance use, imprisonment, unstable social relationships, domestic violence, and erratic work history (Stafford & Wood, 2017). In addition, I would require data concerning other sources of funding available to the clinic from local businesses, non-governmental organizations, and individual donors. Overall, I must demonstrate that other funding sources are unavailable or insufficient, financial resources are well managed, the population is truly needy, and the negative effects of cutting the budget.
References
Petrovich, J. C., Hunt, J. J., North, C. S., Pollio, D. E., & Murphy, E. R. (2020). Comparing unsheltered and sheltered homeless: Demographics, health services use and predictors of health services use.Community Mental Health Journal, 56(2), 271-279.
Stafford, A., & Wood, L. (2017). Tackling health disparities for people who are homeless? Start with social determinants.International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 14(12), 1535.