Cultural Safety in Nursing Care for Aboriginal People

Nursing
Student’s name:
Institutional:

The Aboriginal health believes and the western health belief disparity brings difficulties in
service delivery by western health professionals (Goodman.et.al 2017). The traditional
Aboriginal model emphasizes the cause of illness being due to social and spiritual dysfunction.
They also believe that serious illnesses are due to intervention by a supernatural being. They
believe that an individual's well-being is based on effective discharge of obligations to society
and community at large. They also put priority in social relationships. They categorize their
illnesses according to cause as natural, direct supernatural, environmental, emergent or western
causes and indirect supernatural. Therefore, providing health care services to these people
cultural safety should be considered. This is guided by five important principles.
As a healthcare provider, one should ensure that he or she understands the cultural
background of the client. This is because some procedures may be offensive to them basing on
their values and believes. According to Sanderson (2016), Aboriginal people have a clear cut off
men and women roles. Breach to these traditional divisions and roles can cause distress and
shame to the client and that is why Aboriginal patients need to be attended by nurses of their own
gender. According to Burbank (2017), Aboriginal people believe that the death of very young,
those advanced in age and those with chronic illnesses are considered to be normal but deaths
outside these groups may have a supernatural influence. This brings an understanding of why
someone died or became ill and not another person. It can be as a result of disobedience to norms
or as a punishment for doing something contrary to expectations. They also believe in sorcery as
one of the causes of illness, mortality or morbidity. This may bring disparity with the western
medicine causes of a disease. Therefore, appropriate intervention should be provided.
The nurses should also seek to minimize power differentials. The main forms of treatment
among the Aboriginal people are bush medicine, traditional healers, singing/chanting and

external remedies. They use each form based on the cause of illness but mostly if they are
Aboriginal causes. They sometimes employ western medicine intervention especially when they
have an established traditional explanation of a condition. The best way to treat them is a
combination of both traditional and western interventions. For example use of western medicine,
intervention is important in relieving symptoms of a disease and traditional interventions provide
an explanation of how something occurred. Therefore, healthcare professionals should give a
clear explanation of the causes of illness or death of an individual. Through employing this
combination therapy, power differentials are minimized (DeSorcy, Olver and Wormith 2016).
Furthermore, engaging the client concerning their health status is very important. The nurse
should explain to the patient all the procedures to be carried out, the type of medical condition
the client is suffering from and even the medications the patient is on. The nurse should use
simple language that the patient understands and avoid medical terms that will make the patient
feel defined. The nurse should communicate effectively with the patient creating a positive
atmosphere where a patient can express his or her feelings freely.
The nurse should continue in the process of decolonization of the Aboriginal people.
Mistrust has been there from the past among the Aboriginal people and it is really affecting
healthcare service provision to the Aboriginal people. To them, they dont belief in protection and
intervetions as they associate them with negative outcomes. The main reason for developing this
mistrust is due to the effects of European colonization. The Aboriginal children were also
forcefully removed from their families as it was an official government policy in Australia
during that period. The impact caused is still felt today by the Aboriginal people and this has
affected their relationship with health care providers. Lack of trust can lead to them declining
services that could have been helpful to them. Their decision making can also be affected