Improving Cultural Safety for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in Healthcare Facility

This nursing assignment proposes strategies to improve cultural safety for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in a healthcare facility in Rockhampton, Queensland. The problem identified is the absence of cultural safety in the healthcare facility, affecting the right to quality healthcare and cultural safety of the indigenous community. The proposed strategies include cross-cultural education, legislative policies, more interpreters, and creating cultural empathy. The expected outcomes include increased trust and empowerment of the indigenous patients, increased respect for the aboriginals among nursing professionals, and increased involvement of the indigenous population in the care process. The evaluation process includes assessing the compliance of nursing professionals with the implemented strategies and obtaining feedback from the indigenous patients.

Running head: NURSING ASSIGNMENT
PROPOSAL PROJECT PART A
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Problem statement
In the Healthcare facility in Rockhampton, Queensland, it has been observed that patient
belonging to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island are facing cultural isolation and discrimination.
Despite the presence of interpreters, they are not been provided with health interventions
information in their own language. Hence, the absence of cultural safety is the problem identified
in the healthcare facility.
Identification of the problem
As a nurse in the healthcare facility of Rockhampton, Queensland, I was able to observe
the critical issues that affected the relationship and communication process between the
aboriginals and Torres Strait Islands. I observed that my co-workers discriminate between
aboriginals and others in the care process. They make fun of their inability to speak fluent
English. Further, despite having three interpreters for such a community, they are not available
on time, when the physicians provide them information about their healthcare strategy. This
affects their right to avail quality healthcare and also limit their rights related to cultural safety.
Proposed strategies
As Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have different cultural, lingual and behavioral
preferences, the strategy to make effective communication and showing respect to their
originality should consist of strategies having cultural support. The first strategy will be
providing the healthcare professionals especially nursing professionals with cross-cultural
education and training. This is important as cross-cultural communication helps in the sensitive
healthcare provisions. The communication process between indigenous and non-indigenous
people that is patient and the clinician broadens the scope of healthcare attainment for the
indigenous people. For this purpose, as per the strategy, the nursing professionals will be taught
about the effective communication skills including verbal and non-verbal communication skills,
usage of tones, language, and body language and should also be taught about proving the
aboriginals with the environment that can enhance their positive experience about healthcare.
The nursing professionals should be trained in communicating with the community and should
focus on their ability to question and listening ability so that they can understand the health and

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cultural concerns of the community. The second strategy would be the implementation of
legislative policies so that the rights and dignity of the aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders can
be protected. The healthcare facility should strongly impose the laws related to indigenous
people and should develop a plan of action that can identify and demolish the inequalities present
in the healthcare service as well as identify and balance the social determinants that can prohibit
their achievement of quality healthcare. The healthcare professionals should aware of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948 and while caring for aboriginals and Torres Strait
Islanders, should implement these regulations in the care process. The nursing professionals
should also be provided with education related to aboriginals right to health, right to free speech
and fair trial so that while facing any patient who is unable to talk in English or understand the
instructions of the physician, nurses try their best to help the patient. The Third strategy will be
the implementation of more interpreters in the healthcare facility and keep a track record of their
involvement of aboriginal patients, so that number of such patient using interpretation service to
understand the health care instructions can be assessed. Further, those interpreters will also be
educated about the ethical and cultural preference related needs of the aboriginal community so
that while communicating with such people they can be polite and support them to understand
the clinical instructions. The fourth and most important strategy that should be taught and
followed by the healthcare professionals of the facility is the ability to create a cultural empathy
so that number of the aboriginal patient can come to such facility to avail healthcare. each step of
the healthcare process should be shared with the patients family using interpreters and the
nursing profession should be polite and show respect to the family so that they can build trust on
the care process and take part in the decision making procedure. Therefore these four strategies
will be used to create an environment with healthy communication and dignity of care for the
Torres Strait Islanders in the healthcare facility of Rockhampton, Queensland.
Expected outcomes
Using these abovementioned strategies will help in the establishment of a positive and
healthy relationship between healthcare professionals and the patient that will help the patient to
build trust in the process. The confidence of the aboriginal patient will increase and they will be
empowered as they will understand the healthcare information, diagnosis, and prevention
process, as well as they, will be able to take care, manage and treat their own health using the

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clinician advice or instructions. Further, the education and training provided to the nursing
profession will increase their respect for the aboriginals and all the misconception about the
community will be removed using the first strategy. The expected outcome of the second
strategy will make every healthcare professional proactive regarding the care process for
aboriginal patients. Further, they will take care of the dignity of such patients and will be afraid
of making fun of their inability to speak English as observed in the previous situation. The third
strategy of involvement of more interpreters in the service will increase the chances and ability
of aboriginal patients to understand the health care instructions and take an active part in the
decision making regarding their or their family’s healthcare procedure. Further other two
strategies will involve the indigenous population in the care process as the non-indigenous
patients and their right to health and dignity will be protected in the care facility.
Evaluation of the outcomes
The evaluation process is the most important section of strategy implementation as this
helps to identify the effectiveness of the implemented strategy and identified the positive and
negative outcomes for the subject. In this case of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and
associated strategies to increase their involvement in the care process and maintain their dignity
in the care facility, four strategies were decided to implement and expected outcomes were
shared. As the strategies included nursing facility and the aboriginal patients, the evaluation will
also include these two stakeholders. All the strategies require the nursing professional to learn
and train with regulations, ethical and behavioral skills while caring for Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islanders, after the completion of education and training they will be asked to fill out a
questionnaire in which all the policies and ethical factors will be mentioned so that their
understanding related to aboriginal and their rights can be assessed. Further, for few sessions of
care process, all the nursing professionals will be assessed and screened so that their compliance
with the implemented strategy can be identified. Further to understand the effect of these
strategies on the primary stakeholder of the care process or the aboriginal patients, they will be
interviewed or they will be asked to interact with the interpreters in their own language and
comfort so that their honest feedback related to the implemented strategies for their involvement
in the care process can be assessed.

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Conclusion
While concluding, it should be mentioned that Aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders
possess equal rights and benefits compared to any non-indigenous community and this right
should be provided to them so that their involvement in the cross-cultural activities can be
increased. In this section, while working in a healthcare facility of Rockhampton, Queensland I
witnessed the discrimination and violation of rights to care and dignity of aboriginals as nursing
professionals made fun of them. To overcome this problem I proposed five strategies that can
overcome the inequalities of the care process. This also included the expected outcomes and
evaluation process that can increase the cross-cultural communication between the healthcare
professionals and indigenous patients in the care facility.

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