Health and Well-being as Human Rights: Nursing Assignment

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

1NURSING ASSIGNMENT
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

2NURSING ASSIGNMENT
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