Healthcare Providers and Faith Diversity: Christianity and Buddhism

Health Care Provider and Faith Diversity
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Health Care Provider and Faith Diversity The field of healthcare is characterized by diversity because people from different backgrounds work in this sector. People belonging to different cultural, religious, racial and ethnic backgrounds are united under a common goal, the betterment of the healthcare realm. Equally, the clients visiting health care centers are from different backgrounds and have different beliefs as far as illnesses and healing are concerned. Spiritual beliefs play a key role in helping providers to understand how religions perceive the healing process and are therefore fundamental to understanding the relations between different philosophies and ways of treating a patient. Beliefs in the existence of God and prayers are some of the crucial factors in relating religion to different clinical approaches. Treatment of ailments has been interpreted and dealt with differently in different religious beliefs. However, despite the existence of these differences, there is a similarity that is common to all these religions, they all emphasize that human health is one of the most valuable possessions that must be sustained at all times and should be protected from deteriorating through both medical and spiritual interventions. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that religious beliefs are complex aspects of human lives, which makes predicting how a patient or their relatives may apply various religious doctrines in the health care context very difficult. It is, therefore, crucial for healthcare professionals such as nurses, physicians, and pharmacists to have adequate knowledge about how different religions perceive the concept of health care.  As indicated above, diversity in healthcare and professionals in this sector should encourage clients and their family members to explain and interpret how various principles of their religions may be relevant to different hospital activities such as interaction with providers, individual needs, and decisions about particular treatments (Ehman, 2012). Such a provision is important as it ensures a proper interaction between medical staffs and patients as well as their families and promotes patients’ trust in a particular healthcare organization. To get a better understanding of how different religious ideologies impact health care, two religions, Christianity and Buddhism will be comprehensively evaluated. This paper will look at different aspects of these religions and how they influence different healthcare principles. Christianity In Christianity, spiritual intervention for healing ailments has been profoundly emphasized. Christians believe that since God created humans in His image, He cannot stand seeing His image suffer due to illnesses. Resultantly, God helps humans to devise ways through which they can get rid of ailments to avoid suffering. Spiritual Perspective on Healing             Christianity emphasizes the importance of divine intervention in all aspects of life, particularly in the health sector. According to Christianity, Human beings are created in the likelihood and the image of God. He did not only create humans with physical bodies but through Jesus Christ, he personally came to earth, died and resurrected with a physical body (Elder, 2000). During His time on the earth, Jesus Christ healed many people who were suffering from different physical ailments through spiritual means. He passed the healing ability to His disciples who continued healing people from various physical ailments. Therefore, Christians believe that God has the power to transform the mortal physical bodies into immortal ones through spiritual means. Christianity emphasizes the importance of divine intervention for healing, which is the reason why individuals practicing this religion believe that holiness is the most fundamental contributor to the welfare of human physical health (Elder, 2000). For instance, in Roman Catholic churches, blessings and sacraments are performed by priests before surgery or in other instances where the risk of death is perceived high. Sacraments for the sick are the most requested rites by patients, and they are usually considered as the last rites by most Catholics (Ehman, 2012). Holy Communion also known as Eucharist and confessions are other rites requested by patients who are ailing. Thus, it is evident that church and divine intervention as far as sickness is concerned is one of the most important aspects of Christianity. Components of Healing in Christianity In Christianity, different components of healing such as spiritual and mental exist. Christians believe that physical, emotional, mental and spiritual healings are important as they ensure restoration of the image of God. Christianity indicates that healing can only occur in a community and other forms of healing are incomplete (Elder, 2000). God bestowed upon the church several gifts, one of them is the power to heal the sick. In this context, God sees the church as the community mandated with physical, social, emotional and spiritual healing. Although all aspects of healing have been greatly emphasized in Christianity, the component of spiritual healing takes the biggest share. In Christianity, some practices such as abortion are highly condemned. Abortion is one of the most controversial issues in the United States health care system today. Although bible has not clearly dealt with the issue of abortion, most churches such as Roman Catholic sees a baby growing inside the womb of a woman as a complete human being whose right to life must be respected. As indicated in most of Christianity doctrines, a person starts to exist the moment they are conceived, and almost all Christianity churches condemn all intentional acts of expelling the baby from the womb (Soleimani, 2005). Another controversial issue is euthanasia also referred to as assisted death or assisted suicide. Christianity has greatly condemned any act of assisted suicide, indicating that only God has permission to take away human life because he is the one who gives it to them. Christianity rejects the ideologies of consequentialists that if a person request for assisted death, their wish should be granted to take away their suffering (Elder, 2000). Christians are ready to Espouse the view of the “sanctity of life” that indicates that human life should be protected by all means possible and it should not be taken away intentionally (Keown & Keown, 1995). Recommendations for Healthcare Professionals In most cases, patients who practice Christianity have a great desire of meeting their religious leaders while in hospitals because they believe that such leaders have the power to heal them. As a result, this will strengthen their bel...