Summary of the main points
Reform in the healthcare sector has presented myriads of positive impacts over the past few decades. There has been a lot of emphasis on the healthcare needs of children. It is crucial to mention that children are also affected by mental health challenges just like the older population. This explains why the cost of terminal or chronic health challenges is equally high among the young generation. When children are affected by terminal health conditions at a tender age, they are highly likely to face premature death. Hence, sociopolitical reforms that are currently taking place across the globe should focus more on the health needs of children.
When the health reform movement was initiated, it aimed at controlling the ever-rising cost of healthcare. This movement noted that terminal illnesses such as HIV/AIDS and cancer demand long-term planning in terms of financial resources. The service delivery model targeted towards children also aims at lowering instances of the high cost of meeting medical bills. Moreover, health promotion and prevention strategies among children are among the key tenets of the health reform movement.
On the other hand, there is a growing prevalence of mental health problems in children that is yet to be addressed seriously. Most mental health specialists concentrate on the delivery of care services to the older population and generally ignore the plight of children. Hence, reforms in mental healthcare should also focus on the needs of children who are sometimes abandoned by families and communities. Moreover, reforms in education are necessary so that the community can be fully equipped on how to prevent and manage terminal health conditions. Hence, education, psychology and medicine should be advanced along with the same goals.
Lessons learned
A number of lessons learned are evident in this chapter. To begin with, health promotion requires an articulate relationship between different systems of healthcare. In other words, it might be practically impossible to manage healthcare effectively without factoring in the various components that make up the whole domain. Second, instructional outcomes should be improved as part and parcel of educational reforms in schools. To some extent, it implies that learning institutions should incorporate learning modules that address healthcare concerns of terminal conditions. Teachers and students should be made accountable in the course of advancing reforms in education. Third, psychopharmacology is a dominant field of study that has been in existence for some decades now. It focuses on the healthcare needs of children and adolescents. This field of study aims at addressing health challenges such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, and anxiety. Finally, psychology requires a positive approach especially when integrated into children’s healthcare reforms. In any case, all the terminal health conditions affecting children and adolescents should be approached using a deficit-oriented model derived from psychology.
What surprised me the most
From the chapter, I was surprised to learn that pediatric and school psychologists are different in terms of the roles they perform. Even though both of them are concerned with the psychological wellbeing of children, they have service limits. For instance, a school psychologist streamlines his or her duties with the set learning curriculum. On the other hand, a pediatric psychologist mostly works within a healthcare setting and might be quite versatile in the delivery of care services to children. Besides, I was surprised to realize that terminal health conditions are not a preserve of older people because there is an increasing prevalence rate of children diagnosed with complications such as depression, HIV/AIDS, cancer, heart diseases and hypertension.