“Health workers like me are ‘underpaid, overlooked and forgotten about, but yet depended upon” . “We’re not even getting respect. That is the biggest thing: We are not even getting respect”(Kinder, 2020). In 2024, it is pretty clear that we have unfortunately cultivated a world where certain populations are provided with more resources than others. While it has been overlooked, there are starting to be consequences.
Sabrina Hopps, who works as a housekeeping aide in a nursing facility, highlighted the overlooked and under appreciated role of essential workers such as those in housekeeping. She pointed out that roles including housekeeping, maintenance, dietary services, nursing assistants, patient care technicians, and administrative staff often don’t receive the recognition they deserve, indicating a widespread lack of acknowledgment for their crucial contributions.
A study done in 2018 truly shed light on the lack of not just resources but lack of funds these frontline workers have when it comes to healthcare. Their result showed
That those working in agriculture, fishing, and forestry were the most likely to lack health insurance, with 46.4% of them being uninsured. Personal care aides faced significant barriers in accessing healthcare, with 29.3% reporting they couldn’t afford to visit a doctor when needed. Construction workers showed a notable gap in healthcare access: 51.1% did not have a regular healthcare provider, and 50.6% hadn’t received a routine physical examination in the past year. Compared to the broader workforce, employees in three specific occupation categories—food service, building maintenance, and construction—experienced considerably lower access to healthcare (Boal et al., 2018).
If that information isn’t enough to prove this tremendous gap, we’ve also seen a correlation between lack of access to healthcare and poor mental and physical health. Imagine a world where our frontline of essential workers’ health is so low that we eventually begin to see this population dwindle.
This is something we have actively recognized and problem solved for here at iwilltilimwell. We have 24/7 affordable telehealth care AND telehealth medicine, revolutionizing the healthcare space in a way that’s more convenient, accessible and POSSIBLE for this population of essential workers. Essential workers are an imperative population to our work culture, and it’s important that we keep them safe, happy, and healthy.
SOURCES
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0033354921996688
