Health and Well-being as Human Rights: Nursing Assignment

This nursing assignment discusses the issue of violation of health rights with respect to health and effective ways in which nursing student could address this issue during clinical practice.

Running head: NURSING ASSIGNMENT
NURSING ASSIGNMENT
HEALTH/WELL-BEING AS HUMAN RIGHTS
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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Introduction:
According to the constitution of WHO, it is the right of every human being to attain
highest standard of health (who.int, 2018). However, in Australia, it has been found that, the
people residing in rural and remote areas lack adequate health resources and they have poor
access to health care service, hence the population suffer from high prevalence of disease, injury
and high mortality rate, which indicates violation of their rights and dignity (aihw.gov.au, 2018).
It is the duty of the nurse to provide effective and equal care to individual, hence the nursing
student need to shape their practice in a way which could address this issue in an effective
manner (Barnes, 2015). This paper aims to discuss the health and human rights of individual. In
this regards the following paper will provide information about the issue of violation of rights
with respect to health and effective ways in which nursing student could address this issue during
clinical practice.
Discussion:
As mentioned before the WHO has mentioned in its constitution that, obtaining high
standard of health is the human right of the individual (who.int, 2018). On the other hand right to
health is one of the major human rights in Australia and according to Australian government, it is
the human right of the individual to obtain and enjoy the highest attainable level of physical and
mental health. Health and well-being as human right has been mentioned in the International
Convent of Economic social and Cultural rights article 12 (1) (ag.gov.au, 2018). Hence, it is the
right of the individual to access adequate health service and utilize required health resources in
order to remain healthy and maintain their well-being in an effective manner. However, it has
been found that, in rural and remote area, especially the Aboriginal and Torres islanders suffer
from high level of chronic and communicable disease and death rate is also high in this

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population due to lack of health resources and poor access to health service (aihw.gov.au, 2018).
On the other hand, the Australian human right commission act, 1986, also elaborated the right to
equality and non-discrimination (Humanrights.gov.au, 2018). Despite of such acts and
regulations, there are many people in this population that lack proper health service due to social
discrimination and disadvantages. According to (Irving et al., 2017) the Australian indigenous
population are more vulnerable to diabetes, heart and kidney related disease, reproductive health
issue and mental illness as well. In addition the health statistics has shown that 65% death occur
before 65 years in indigenous population as compare to 19% death in non-indigenous population
(Kim et al., 2017). Such gap in the health status has indicated discrimination in health service.
Thus, it can be said that the poor and unequal access to health results in violation of human rights
and dignity of aboriginal and other rural population in Australia (Irving et al., 2017).
The above discussion has made it clear that poor access to health results in poor health
outcomes. Hence, it has become major concern for the health system to address the issue of lack
of health service in remote areas. In this regards the nurse could play a major role. It is the duty
of the nurse to provide equal and adequate care to individual and advocate behalf of the patients
in order to meet their health needs. Therefore, the student nurses need to understand the way and
shape their clinical practice in which they could serve the people in rural areas in order to meet
their health needs and achieve positive health outcomes while respecting their dignity and rights
(Barnes, 2015). In this regards the most important aspect is the health education. The nurses
could participate in the community program and educate such rural people about the importance
of health and well-being. Such education could help the people to understand the person to
contact regarding any health need, the way of accessing health service and self-management as
well (Smith et al., 2015). In addition, the nurses could use cultural competency to serve for the

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people with different cultural background and provide culturally safe care approach (Garneau &
Pepin, 2015). The nurses could use their advocacy power and help the people to access adequate
resources and common goods in terms of economic and social aspects to meet their requirements
regarding health. Effective advocacy may help to develop policies that are helpful for the
patients to access high quality care (Galuska, 2016). Such contribution of the nurses could help
the people to understand the importance of health and well-being and encourage them to utilize
their right to health and improve health status in an effective manner.
Conclusion:
The above discussion has demonstrated that, health is one of the human rights and it is
the right of individual to attain highest standard of health. However, the rural and aboriginal
people in Australia have been found to suffer from various health issues due to lack of resource
and access to health service, which is actually the violation of their human rights and dignity.
Hence, it is required for the nursing student to shape their practice in a way which could address
the issue of violation of health rights. In this regards, the nurses could provide health education,
culturally safe care and use advocacy power in order to meet the health requirement of such
people and help to access adequate health service and maintain their health and well-being in an
effective manner.

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References:
ag.gov.au (2018). Right to health | Attorney-General's Department. Retrieved from
https://www.ag.gov.au/RightsAndProtections/HumanRights/Human-rights-scrutiny/
PublicSectorGuidanceSheets/Pages/Righttohealth.aspx
aihw.gov.au (2018). Rural & remote health, Access to health services - Australian Institute of
Health and Welfare. Retrieved from https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/rural-health/rural-
remote-health/contents/access-to-health-services
Barnes, H. (2015, July). Nurse practitioner role transition: a concept analysis. In Nursing
forum, 50( 3), pp. 137-146.
Galuska, L. (2016). Advocating for patients: honoring professional trust. AORN journal, 104(5),
410-416.
Garneau, A. B., & Pepin, J. (2015). Cultural competence: A constructivist definition. Journal of
Transcultural Nursing, 26(1), 9-15.
Humanrights.gov.au. (2018). Rights to equality and non discrimination | Australian Human
Rights Commission. [online] Available at: https://www.humanrights.gov.au/rights-
equality-and-non-discrimination [Accessed 22 Oct. 2018].
Irving, M., Gwynne, K., Angell, B., Tennant, M., & Blinkhorn, A. (2017). Client perspectives on
an Aboriginal community led oral health service in rural Australia. Australian Journal of
Rural Health, 25(3), 163-168.

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Kim, S., Lewis, J. R., Baur, L. A., Macaskill, P., & Craig, J. C. (2017). Obesity and hypertension
in Australian young people: Results from the Australian Health Survey 2011–
2012. Internal medicine journal, 47(2), 162-169.
Smith, W. C., Anderson, E., Salinas, D., Horvatek, R., & Baker, D. P. (2015). A meta-analysis of
education effects on chronic disease: the causal dynamics of the Population Education
Transition Curve. Social Science & Medicine, 127, 29-40.
who.int (2018). Human rights and health. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-
sheets/detail/human-rights-and-health