Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services: Providing Holistic and Culturally Safe Care

This essay discusses Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHS) and their role in providing holistic and culturally safe care. It compares and contrasts ACCHSs and GPs in terms of their ability to meet the health needs of Aboriginal communities. The essay also explores the role of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workers (ATSIHW) and provides insights for nurses working with them in interdisciplinary teams. Additionally, it delves into the concept of self-determination and its relevance to ACCHOs, ATSIHWs, and cultural safety.

Running head: HEALTHCARE 1
Healthcare.
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

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Introduction
Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services are the pragmatic assertion of
Indigenous self-determination in Aboriginal well-being. They are not controlled by the
government, and Aboriginal communities have been developing community controlled services
since 1971(Khoury, 2015). The essay defines ACCHS and discusses how it responds to holistic
health and compares and contrasts ACCHSs and GPs regarding their capability to provide
holistic along with culturally safe care. Moreover, it explains the role of ATSIHW together with
what nurses should consider while working with them in an interdisciplinary team. Lastly, it
defines self-determination and describes how it relates to ACCHOs, ATSIHWs, along with
cultural safety.
Define what an ACCHS is, and discuss how ACCHSs respond to holistic health needs, as
per the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander definition of health (as included in the
NACCHO Constitution)
An Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Service (ACCHS) is an integrated primary
health care service introduced and managed in a local Aboriginal society to provide whole,
extensive and culturally proper health care to the society that manages it via a regionally chosen
board of management (Campbell, Hunt, Scrimgeour, Davey & Jones, 2018).
Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Service responds to holistic wellbeing needs
through providing treatment for patients with complex physical and psychosocial problems
(Weightman, 2013). Those patients often lack the health literacy, education, resources and
networks of influence which several other Australians have as a result of being more affluent,
better educated and living in regions with greater access to resources and support. Moreover,

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ACCHS provide comprehensive primary care, including dental, medical, public health, together
with outreach services (Percival, O’Donoghue, Lin, Tsey & Bailie, 2016).
Moreover, ACCHS respond to holistic health needs through community support
(Weightman, 2013). They have a comprehensive view of health care, recognizing that Aboriginal
health care have to be composite and concentrate on cultural ramifications which might not be
acknowledged by mainstream health services. As every indigenous community over the nation
has a disparate language along with culture. On the other hand, access is active in the area of
advocacy (Weightman, 2013). They provide a voice for the people so that their needs can be
articulated. They develop a national network with their cumulative interests depicted both on a
state level and nationally.
Special needs programs are another way in which ACCHSs respond to the holistic health
needs of Aboriginal individuals. ACCHSs respond about population wellbeing with ambitions
ranging from education to campaigns to immunizations and screening of disorders (Weightman,
2013). Every ACCHS manages special services which are governed by local needs and
preferences. Other programs are directed by particular groups like elderly or young mothers.
However, the compliance of these special services enables every ACCHS to recognize and
announce the most notable issues in its area (Weightman, 2013).
i. compare and contrast ACCHSs and GPs regarding their ability to provide
holistic and culturally safe care
The value of comprehensive along with culturally safe care for the Aboriginal people has
been increasingly recognized in Australia more so by organizations which either provide or
represent services to indigenous people (Love, Moore & Warburton, 2017). Models of care and
program delivery like the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) model, proposed as the best

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operation for general practice is not different to the model utilized by ACCHS since their
initiation in the 1970s (Panaretto, Wenitong, Button & Ring, 2014).
Leadership in ACCHS entails both ACCHS management and society, and the care model
is more team-based than general practitioner-focused. However, the PCMH, together with
ACCHS models, are universal (Panaretto et al., 2014). The care is client-centered and merged
with allied community services, mental health professionals, and health specialists. Furthermore,
it may involve family, has important physician input, it is preferably provided in the home, and it
is supported by involvement in nursing quality-improvement programs.
In contrast, access to services is different between the ACCHS and in the general
practice. Twenty-seven ACCHS in Queensland is spread across a distinct and decentralized
region of 1.7 million km2. Thus, the service data indicates that in local areas, the use of ACCHS
by individuals recognized as indigenous might be greater than 50-50 split with general practice
demonstrated by Medicare Australia data. Access of service is crucial, and where ACCHS
prevail, the society chooses to and utilize them, recommending that patterns of use consider
patchy supply (Panaretto et al., 2014).
Furthermore, there are continuing drivers of infirmity amid adult indigenous persons who
utilize ACCHSs. These issues have to be handled by individuals, community, and families. To
effect the change, health professionals require fully-equipped affiliated health teams ideally
functioning from their clinics where individuals feel valued and are provided with help along
with transport. Consequently, the traditional general practice is inadequate to handle the ongoing
issues in indigenous well-being health and the appropriate intricate challenges in behavior
change (Panaretto et al., 2014).

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Describe the role of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Worker
(ATSIHW). Discuss what nurses need to consider when working with ATSIHW in an
interdisciplinary team
The central part of Aboriginal health workers is to deliver health care. They enhance the
quality and amount of health services given to indigenous people and enhance communication
with Aboriginal individuals and communities. Furthermore, ATSIHW practice administration
and management in health care. ATSIHW play a crucial part in minimizing anxiety and
enhancing the quality of communication for indigenous patients via a cultural brokerage.
They help General Practitioners to assist the patients to better understand the disease and
its treatment (Trueman, 2016). In the community where they serve, they provide counseling, life
skills education, and referral for crisis intervention. Finally, they provide input into planning,
development, implementation, along with monitoring and evaluating all health programs in the
community (Hine, 2018).
When nurses are working with ATSIHW in an interdisciplinary team, they need to
consider the history, socio-political climate, and culture within the particular community (Lai,
Taylor, Haigh & Thompson, 2018). The Aboriginal people can have diverse and unique beliefs,
customs, languages, cultural practices, and healing practices based on the community they are
from. For several indigenous people, the topic of dying and death is a compassionate part.
Nonetheless, nurses cannot generalize across all Aboriginal communities about spiritual beliefs
and values.
The nurses should find out from the older indigenous individuals their cultural along with
spiritual beliefs and preferences about the place of death, people who should be present and what
attention is needed when they have succumbed like dispensation of the body along with affiliated

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rituals. For some Indigenous people, these spiritual and cultural needs may be more essential
than meeting physical needs like relieving pain (Lai et al., 2018). Furthermore, it is crucial to
consider the Indigenous people's family and community. An Aboriginal health worker might
assist indigenous people and their family, and caregivers feel more comfortable and at ease with
their care.
ii. define self-determination and explain how it relates to ACCHOs, ATSIHWs and
cultural safety
Self-determination is a necessary situation for the valid guarantee and observance of
person human rights and the advancement and reinforcement of those rights (Dörr, 2019).
Through those rights, the ACCHOs provide Indigenous individuals with a community-owned
and culturally assured health care service which addresses their health demands in a complete
framework. In spite of the expansion of ACCHOs, nevertheless, they are far from adequate in
resources and size to meet the huge demand. Therefore, it remains necessary that there be a
capacity building plan for ACCHOs and also that indigenous individuals have fairness of access
to proper mainstream health care services along with programs (Pulver et al., 2010).
On the other hand, self-determination relates to ATSIHWs in that increasing recognition
of human rights led to a condition whereby there are over eighty qualified Aboriginal doctors
and almost a hundred Aboriginal medical students in Australia. Initially, the poor health and low
participation of Aboriginal people were related. All these have been attainable because of living
in the era of self-determination. These experiences are in maintaining with the objectives of
affirmative action which are to build impartiality of opportunity and outcome for Aboriginal
people and for the benefit of Australians to encourage diversification via an equal delineation of
indigenous individuals in the community.

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Finally, self-determination and cultural safety relate in that, through the rights to health
equity, Aboriginal people have the role to adjust to their practice to enhance patient participation
and health care results (O’Mara, 2012). This involves having an understanding of regard for and
responsiveness on the cultural needs of Aboriginal individuals and recognizing the
socioeconomic together with cultural determinants affecting the wellbeing of indigenous
Australians. Moreover, through self-determination the medical fraternity value and comprehend
the connection amidst artistic integrity and Aboriginal wellbeing which is one of the driving
forces behind the push to identify Aboriginal individuals in the constitution (O’Mara, 2012).
Conclusion
Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Service provides holistic and culturally safe
care to indigenous people through community support, special needs programs, comprehensive
primary care, and advocacy. It has minimized involuntary racism, barriers to access to health
care, and is increasingly enhancing people’s health results for the aboriginal individuals. ACCHS
through ACCHOs has increased Aboriginal health workers whose primary role is to deliver
health care in collaboration with other professionals. However, through self-determination,
which supports the observance of human rights and reinforcement of those rights has resulted in
equitable healthcare to Aboriginal people and more Aboriginals qualify to be Aboriginal doctors.

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References
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