Australian Aboriginal Healthcare Gaps

This assignment discusses the healthcare gaps faced by the Australian Aboriginal community due to systemic discrimination and the loopholes in the assimilation policy. It also provides recommendations to overcome these gaps.

Running head: HEALTHCARE ASSIGNMENT
AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL HEALTHCARE GAPS
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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Introduction
Indigenous people also known as Aboriginal individuals are considered to be the
ethnic community of people who are the original care taker and owner of a particular region.
The health status and the position of the indigenous people are impacted by the country
where they inhabit. Majority of the indigenous adults despair over abandonment of the family
ties and culture. A total of 241,824 aboriginal people of the age 10 to 24 years inhabited
Australia in the year 2016 (Dudgeon et al. 2014). This number contributed to 5% of the entire
Australian youth population. Improvement of the health of the indigenous people is
considered as a challenge for the government of Australia (Walter 2016).
Background of health status of Indigenous population
Indigenous people do not have equal opportunity to be as healthy as the non-
indigenous Australians. These people are exposed to environmental as well as behavioural
health risk factors due to the socioeconomic disadvantages of the indigenous individuals
(Markus and Taft 2015). They are under privileged to get access to the health infrastructure
and the primary health care. These facilitates include safe water for drinking, efficacious
sewage disposal systems and garbage collection services (Jones 2017). This gap experienced
between the aboriginal and the non-aboriginal individuals have not been reduced. This gap
faced in the health status that is experienced is linked to the systemic discrimination.
Critical analysis of healthcare policy
As mentioned in the policy of assimilation, the Australian government mentioned that
all the aboriginal and non-aboriginal communities living in Australia would be provided with
equal living styles (Jones 2017). These communities would be provided with rights and
responsibilities that would distributed for every Australian individual and it would be
important that they develop the same beliefs, hope and loyalty towards the population so that

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they could develop effective abilities for their own growth and healthcare (Robertson 2018).
Further, these changes would be favourable for their own future and they would be able to
develop abilities so that their future social, economic and political advancement could occur
effectively.
Identify and critically discuss the links between the policy and current health status
Analysing the current health status of the current Australian health outcomes and
linking it to the assimilation policy would help to understand the means that the policy fails to
implement for the effective healthcare outcome of the community (Hickey et al. 2018). In this
aspect the Australian indigenous population, especially their younger generation and their
identity and racism, their smoking habits and traditional birthing places and their ability to
reach to higher education and effective professional employment opportunities would be
discussed (Goodman et al. 2017). Racism and social discrimination are termed as aspects that
have the ability to affect any community’s health status as this is considered to be one of the
most leading social issues the community of aboriginal and Torres Strait Island is suffering
from (Goodman et al. 2017). These social actions are unfair and unjustified and as per Davy
et al. (2016) discrimination could also initiate improper distribution of aspects such as the
income power and wealth in the community. As the Australian communities are much
concerned about the race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status and disability to determine health
status, racial discrimination emerges as the aspect that primarily affects the mental and
emotional health of the community (Goodman et al. 2017). As peer the data published in
Zambas and Wright (2016), every 1 in four Australian aboriginal young adult has faced racial
discrimination in their lifetime and hence, from this data it could be easily identified that the
healthcare concepts could be affected due to the presence of such racial discrimination in the
society. These aspects has also impacted the current health status of the community as the
Australian Human Rights community has mentioned in their report that the Australian

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aboriginal community is still suffering from their critical health complication associated with
the health complication due to social inequality and gaps (Street et al. 2018). The report
mentioned that Australian indigenous population has not been provided with equal
opportunity as other Australian communities to attain healthy lifestyle and hence, their socio
economic and physiological aspects have become primary reasons of their healthcare
complication (Marsden 2018). Hence, from this critical analysis of the Assimilation Policy
1961 helped to understand the fact that this policy and its loopholes are the primary reason of
the widespread health inequality in the process and the government should be able to
implement inclusive strategies so that all the communities in Australian could help each other
to develop effective health outcome for every community (Jones 2017).
The Australian healthcare system not only discriminates the younger generation of the
Australia and affect their health status but also impacts the new born babies and their mothers
by making their health outcome stagnant and increasing their risk of infections. There are
aspects that have identified the persisting complications of health status of the Australian
aboriginal birth rate and the way this birth rate has impacted the healthcare of the community
(Hickey et al. 2018). Maternal mortality is three times higher in this community, with which
this community has 12% lower birth weight, 14% preterm birth, 12% perinatal deaths and
others, Besides this, it was also identified from the research of Gould et al. (2017) that the
smoking rate is also higher in this community than others. Therefore, from this discussion it
was identified that the government has failed to implement healthy maternity and birth
related provisions in this community due to which all these complications are still associated
with community and its community members. The aboriginal people experience disadvantage
in the socio-economic aspect like the employment rate of the non-indigenous Australians was
three times higher than the indigenous Australians. Their average gross household income is
also lesser in comparison to the no-indigenous people in Australia (Markus and Taft 2015).

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Hence, poor education and literacy promotes poor health. The reduced gross income of this
community deprives them from availing the primary healthcare facilities. The poor diet of the
infant makes them prone to chronic diseases and poverty. These are the contributing factors
to the unhealthy stress burden (Gracey 2014). As per Street et al. (2018) for years these
policies and their provision has impacted the physical mental and spiritual health of the
community and in today’s society as well, these provisions affect them with their identity.
While developing this policy, the government mentioned these aspects due to which the
growth and development of the healthcare means of the Australian aboriginal and Torres
Strait islanders would increase in the common society. However, there were factors such as
social inclusion and exclusion, low income, unemployment, improper sanitation, education
and lack of proper nutritious food were the reasons due to which the government were unable
to control of develop healthcare aspects for this community. Hence, despite the fact that the
government’s intent towards the population and community by developing the policy was
positive, it detached them from the common society and developed critical condition in terms
of their health care (Markus and Taft 2015).
Education and employment could be determined as the primary stakeholder in a
person’s health status as it helps them to obtain monetary benefits and knowledge due to
which they are able to implement effective care for their health complications (Race et al.
2016). The white settlement of Australia has impacted the culture of the indigenous
population. The white colonisation aided in removal of the existing traditions of the
community as well as the appropriate lifestyle and care. In a report published namely health
performance framework 2017 report, in the year 2015, only 21% of age 15 and above were
admitted in educational facilities to attain their basic and higher education. 6% of this
community were admitted in higher education and this rate had increased by 1.4% from last
decade (Azzopardi et al. 2018). The National Aboriginal Health Strategy was created in the

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1989. The Australian government denied the civil rights for the indigenous people. The civil
rights included the property rights, access to health care facilities, ability to work and earn
wages as well (King, Brough and Knox 2014). Therefore, through the application of this
policy the Australian government mentioned that if any special measures have been
implemented for the Australian aboriginal community then it is temporary and has been
implemented so that the specific need or requirement of the community could be met
effectively (Marsden 2018). The Australian government enforced the indigenous community
for assimilation into the colonisers’ culture with regards to the schools and the other
programs. Their aboriginal languages were also banned which led to acculturation in the
indigenous community that promoted inter-generational, social and historical trauma
(Dudgeon et al. 2014). This has directly impacted their attainment of healthcare in Australia
by decreasing their chances of getting employment and hence, it should be the duty of the
government so that they could develop effective opportunities for the growth and
development of the process (Hickey et al. 2018). Therefore these analyses of the aspects
associated with Australian aboriginal education, their rate of employment, their maternal and
child health and the connection of racism and discrimination to their disrupted health
condition have identified the aspects due to which the aboriginal community is suffering from
critical health conditions (Gould et al. 2017). Thus, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
people are deprived of the opportunity to be as healthy as the non-aboriginal people (King,
Brough and Knox 2014).
Trauma from Assimilation Policies and recommendations
As a nursing professionals understanding and developing knowledge about the gaps
and loopholes in the healthcare policies of Australia helped me to understand the aspects that
need to be added in the cultural practices, societies and the healthcare facilities so that these
complications could be effectively identified and removed (Altman, Hunter and Biddle

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2018). The first aspect that needs to be included in Australian society is the application of
cultural safety. As per Jones (2017), cultural safety is the effective approach that provides the
healthcare process an environmental, spiritual, social and emotional safety so that patients
could overcome their complications associated with racial discrimination and exclusions and
able to receive healthcare for their health improvement. There are multiple ways I believe
would help to include cultural safety in the care process. Communication is one such method
that could be implemented in the care process so that with understanding the preferences and
needs of the community members the healthcare professionals could understand the aspects
that needs to be implemented in the healthcare process (Ring 2016). Communication would
help the Australian aboriginal community embers to develop trust and belief on the care
system and they would be able to understand the Australian government and its implemented
policy’s significance. Further, it is important that the healthcare professionals implement
principles of the cultural safety while addressing the healthcare complication of the patient so
that the patients could develop understanding of their health complication. One such model of
cultural safety and for effective healthcare of the communities should be discussed. In this
aspect, the discussion about one of the most important aspect implemented by the Australian
government that is the Closing the Gap should be discussed (Marmot 2017). This is an
Australian governmental strategy so that the aboriginal community could be provided with
aspects to overcome their risk of healthcare. Further, they could overcome their risk of
educational achievement and able to develop possible health outcome for the process. To
implement the effective healthcare in the Australian aboriginal community’s health gap,
decision making would be the effective mean that would help to develop effective abilities so
that people could overcome the risk of health complication (Lawton 2015). Decision making
should be inclusive of aspects so that people could understand the effectiveness of the care
process and could contribute in the decision making of their own health aspects (Trivedi et al.

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2017). As per the Australian government’s reports, 12% of the healthcare gaps present in the
Australian aboriginal community is because of the racial and discriminatory aspects due to
which majority of the aboriginal populations neglect healthcare facilities for their health
complications (Altman, Hunter and Biddle 2017). Application of communication and
decision making aspects would help in such condition so that they could overcome their risk
of health complications and take part in communications to convey6 their complications.

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