Influences that have Shaped the Australian Healthcare Access

Running head: AUSTRALIAN HEALTHCARE ACCESS INFLUENCES 1
INFLUENCES THAT HAVE SHAPED THE AUSTRALIAN HEALTHCARE ACCESS
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AUSTRALIAN HEALTHCARE ACCESS INFLUENCES 2
Introduction
The healthcare system of Australia is influenced by various factors ranging from
historical, political to socio-cultural factors which highly shape the roles played by registered
nurses. The Australian healthcare system remains to be complex despite the adoption of the
public funding policy whereby Australians have the right to free access of healthcare from
hospitals which are funded publicly (Robinson, Taylor & Dalbeth, 2015). This is because the
system’s funding is done on sharing basis between the federal, state and the territory
governments. The challenges and other factors have highly impacted healthcare access in
Australia. The purpose of this report is to investigate two key influences which shape the
Australian healthcare access and investigate how they have shaped the contemporary healthcare
access and impacted the roles of the registered nurses. The two key influences to be discussed
include the socioeconomic status as part of the socio-cultural and economic issues and the equity
issues and health inequality as part of the political factors (Lindquist et al, 2015). Although the
Australian healthcare access has improved over time, it is recommended that efforts be put
towards solving the various factors which tend to impact the healthcare access negatively in
order to ensure quality and ease of access to healthcare by all Australians equally.
Socioeconomic Status Issue
Socioeconomic status indicates the lifestyles of various individuals in a nation
considering various factors such as income, education, and occupation. Australians have
different economic statuses and hence have different access to healthcare and various physical
activity opportunities. This, therefore, means that Australians face different risk exposures to
various diseases and conditions. In Australia, socioeconomic status has been closely linked to the

AUSTRALIAN HEALTHCARE ACCESS INFLUENCES 3
ability to access healthcare for various conditions such as mental and physical health. Some
Australians are employed, well-educated and have higher levels of wealth. However, these only
represent a small percentage of Australians who are able to access private healthcare due to
various problems associated with public hospitals which serve the vast number of Australians
most of whom are unable to cater for their health privately (Fisher et al, 2017). Majority of
Australians lie in the category of middle and low-class socioeconomic status. This means that
they have little or rather limited financial resources to access healthcare. The low socioeconomic
statuses Australians are faced with psychological distress as a result of economic hardships and
hence do not prioritize health behavior which is crucial for human survival. Most of the middle
and low-class Australians end up engaging in behaviors risky to their health such as alcohol
abuse and smoking as most of them lack proper education on the effects of these behaviors and
also face psychological distress as stated.
From the discussed literature, it is clear that the socioeconomic status issue has highly
shaped Australian healthcare access. For instance, only 47 percent of Australians have private
hospital coverage. Out of the 47 percent, more than 21 percent have only the PHI covers which
only insures one out of five due to low income. Most Australians opt for public hospital
treatment as full fee payment is involved however this is coupled with various challenges. For
example, many hospitals lack enough beds and other crucial facilities (Turner et al, 2016). Also,
Australian hospitals have experienced a shortage of healthcare providers such as nurses
especially the public hospitals. Only a small percentage of Australians are able to adequately
cater to their health privately where they get high-quality treatment. This shows that the majority
of the low and middle-class Australian citizens struggle for the low-quality public hospitals as
the wealth few Australians access healthcare in private hospitals.