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Aboriginal Nursing Assignment - NUR1201

   

Added on  2020-03-01

10 Pages2718 Words56 Views
Public and Global HealthHealthcare and ResearchPolitical Science
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Running head: ABORIGINAL NURSING ASSIGNMENTAboriginal nursing assignmentName of the student:Name of the University:Author’s note
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1ABORIGINAL NURSING ASSIGNMENTThe Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are regarded as the original inhabitantsor the first people of Australia who have a strong connection with their culture, language andtraditional lands. However, they are the most vulnerable group in Australia due to inequality orgap between health and life expectation outcomes of indigenous and non-indigenous population.‘Closing the Gap’ policy launched in 2008 was the Australian Government commitment toreduce disadvantage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and improve the indigenousstatistics related to life expectancy, child mortality, health outcomes, education and employmentoutcomes (Australian Together 2017). The main purpose of this essay is to briefly discuss theevents that lead to the creation of the ‘Closing the Gap’ policy and analyze the significance ofthe policy in influencing health outcome of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Italso gives an insight into one specific health issue that has been addressed by the policy andchallenges or barriers that affected the change process. Closing the Gap is an Australian Government strategy that targets improving the health,education and employment of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. This policy aimsto achieve health equality for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the areas of lifeexpectancy, child mortality and access to education and employment outcomes within 25 yearsperiod (Closing the Gap 2017). The Social Justice report 2005 was the main trigger for thegovernment to establish and launch the Closing the Gap policy. The report gave the idea thatabout the level of improvements needed in the health status of indigenous people. The reportmentioned that the old approach failed to address the life circumstances of Aboriginal andTorres Strait Islander people and called upon the Australian Government to develop a long-termgovernment focused activity to provide equality in health status and life expectancy to them(Social Justice Report 2005 : | Australian Human Rights Commission 2017).Hence, in response
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2ABORIGINAL NURSING ASSIGNMENTto this report, Closing the Gap policy was launched by the Government in 2008 and the goal wasto achieved the health equality and life expectancy target by 2030. The Council of Australian Government (COAG) put forward many measurable targets tobe achieved by 2030. It included many targets like reducing the gap in life expectancy, reducingmortality rate by half in children below five years within 2018 and providing full access to earlychild education in remote communities. Other aim was to halve the gap in reading, writing andnumeracy skill by 2018 and halve the gap in employment outcomes between indigenous andnon-indigenous groups by the end of 2018 (Brown et al., 2015). Since the launch of policy, it isapproaching the one decade goals and there are many improvements and further areas of actionsthat are still remaining. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics data, 2.8% of the Australian populationconsists of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as counted in the 2016 census. Thisincludes a total of 744, 956 aboriginal people (Census: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanderpopulation 2017). Closing the Gap framework has resulted in improvements in many of theimportant indigenous outcomes. The focus on long-term priorities of education, employment,health and well-being of children and adults led to the growth of many antenatal and post natalservices for them. They also focused on investment to provide better access to right service in allareas such as health, childcare and early year schools for indigenous population. Manyemployment programs were also implemented to build the skills of indigenous Australians andimprove employment outcomes (Scott 2015). Improvements in all this aspects have ultimatelytranslated to positive health outcomes too. For example, the life expectancy outcome ofAboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders improved. Indigenous males born between 2010 and 2012
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