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

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

HEALTHCARE 2
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,

HEALTHCARE 3
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