Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders People Well-Being

Running head: ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDERS WELL-BEING 1
ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDERS PEOPLE WELL-BEING
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ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDERS PEOPLE WELL-BEING 2
THE HEALTH FOR ABORIGINAL PEOPLE AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDERS
Successful delivery of care to persons from the Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders is
a dominant challenge to healthcare providers. Communication is one of the most common
problems that registered nurses have to deal with when delivering care to indigenous Australians.
To effectively deal with common challenges faced when caring for patients from the two groups
nurses are required to practice respectful and culturally safe practice. This requires them to have
knowledge on how their own beliefs, assumptions, attitudes, values and culture affects their
interactions with patients, their families, the community and colleagues. Talking in a good way
is, therefore, a key requirement in culturally safe care. Matt, a 24 years old man from the
Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders is faced with various challenges during his admission.
However, due to the culturally safe practice, informed patient advocacy and confidence of the
nurse the patient was empowered to complete his care. Apart from these, approaches the closing
the Gap strategy also aims at improving the wellbeing of the Torres Strait Islanders people. For
example, through closing the gap funding, travel and accommodation expenses for Matt during
his admission. The current approach by the government towards closing the gap has however
been criticized by various players including the Australian human rights commission. This report
documents answers to questions related to Closing the Gap.
i.
Closing the gap and Close the gap are two different programs but with similar intentions.
The main goal of the two programs is to reduced inequalities between non-indigenous Australian
and Indigenous Australians (Nicol, 2017). However, despite the similarity of the goals of the two
programs, there are noticeable differences between the two.

ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDERS PEOPLE WELL-BEING 3
To start with, close the gap is a public awareness campaign spearheaded by the
Australian Human Rights Commission, Human rights organizations, indigenous health bodies
and multiple non-governmental organizations. The launch of the campaign, which took place in
2007, was necessitated by the release of the Social justice report, which identified the
improvement of the health status of the Indigenous Australians as a time-honoured government
challenge in Australia (Davidson, 2014). However, the campaign was supported by the federal
and State governments after the setting up of Council of Australia Government’s six targets
which included the health aims of minimizing the gap in mortality rates among children under
five years and achievement of health equality within a decade (Davidson, 2014).
On the other hand, closing the Gap is a national government strategy launched in 2008 to
deal with indigenous inequality. It included the Indigenous Reform Agreement, a commitment
by the Government to close the gap between non-indigenous and indigenous Australians within a
specified duration (Nicol, 2017). In addition, closing the gap had six main targets. The first target
was to close the life expectancy gap within in a generation. Secondly, it aimed at reducing the
death rates gap for indigenous peoples’ children under 5 years by half in a decade (Davidson,
2014). Thirdly, it was also focused on reducing by half the numeracy, writing and reading
achievements gap for children in a decade. Fourthly, it also focused on bridging by half the year
12 achievement for Indigenous Australiana by 2020. In addition, it had a target of halving the
employment outcomes gap between non-indigenous Australians and Indigenous Australians in
not more than a decade. Finally, part of its targets was also facilitation of access to education for
remote communities’ children aged five (Davidson, 2014).
ii.