Comparison of Indigenous Children's Access to Healthcare in Australia and Canada

Running head: ASSIGNMENT 2
HLTC23 F, Issues in Child Health and Development
Assignment #2: Essay Fall 2018
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1ASSIGNMENT 2
Introduction- In between 1910-1970, several indigenous children from Australia were
forcibly separated from their families, due to certain government policies. These generations
of the children who were removed from their families, under the influence of the government
came to be known as the Stolen Generations (Hamilton, 2017). On the other hand,
approximately 40% of the indigenous children residing in Canada have been found to live in
poverty (Symbol of the Government of Canada, 2018). It is often considered self-evident that
appropriate health care services play an important role in improving the health status among
children. When compared with the impacts of access to medical care on overall mortality
rates, the services prove their role as an essential determinant of children’s health status. In
the words of Levesque, Harris and Russell (2013) health care also is also determined by the
place, time, and contexts. In other words, access to health care services has been identified
important for maintaining and promoting health, preventing diseases, and effectively
managing them. Thus, if the indigenous children are provided with adequate access to these
services, the rates of unnecessary disability and premature death can be lowered. There is
mounting evidence for the discrepancies that exist in the socioeconomic status of the
indigenous and their non-indigenous counterparts in both Canada and Australia. This essay
will contain draw a comparison between Australia and Canada indigenous children’s access
to health care services, in relation to the social-cultural and economic domains.
Social-cultural lens- Reports from data published by the government indicates that the
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander individuals (including children) naturally die at much
earlier ages, in comparison to other Australians and manifest an increased likelihood to suffer
from disability and poor quality of life. The indigenous children were found less likely than
non-Indigenous counterparts for complete immunised in 2009 (Aihw.gov.au, 2011). Time
and again it has been proved that there exists an association between health and social and
cultural factors (Flottorp et al., 2013). Poverty can be theorised as an exposure persuading the

2ASSIGNMENT 2
health of persons at dissimilar levels of the society such as, within families and
neighbourhoods in which persons reside (Loignon et al., 2015). Furthermore, these diverse
stages of influence often co-exist and interrelate with each other to produce health. Some of
the major social and cultural variables comprise of socioeconomic status, gender and
acculturation and immigration status, poverty, social networks, deprivation, and social
support, in addition to collective characteristics of the environments such as, income
distribution of income, social capital, and collective efficacy. According to Akinyemiju et al.
(2013) low socioeconomic status are manifested by an increase in rates of unemployment,
less educational attainment, and poor household size. Absence of health insurance are linked
with health care access problems. It has been found that Indigenous Australians manifest
greater unemployment rates, when compared to non-Indigenous Australians. In 2006,
unemployment rate was 16% that increased to 20% in 2011, and dropped to 18% in 2016
(Abs.gov.au, 2018).
Unemployed indigenous people have lesser household incomes. It has been
established that unemployment is related to lack of adequate health insurance. Thus, it can be
stated that the indigenous Australians do not get all-inclusive health insurance coverage,
which in turn prevents them the children from accessing proper healthcare services. On the
other hand, prior to the 2008-20096 recession time, Aboriginals of Canada faced a difficult
time in seeking employment opportunities. The typical employment rate for Aboriginals was
57.0% in 2009, compared to 61.8% for non-Aboriginal people (Symbol of Statistics Canada,
2018). Furthermore, unemployment rates also saw a sharp increase for the Canada
Aboriginals from 10.4-13.9% in 2008. However, even the unemployed people in Canada
have an option of obtaining reasonable health insurance plans, with investments based the
household size and income. Hence, the income and household size determines the health
coverage and access the indigenous of Canada are entitled to. Marginalised sections of the

3ASSIGNMENT 2
society that comprises of the vulnerable indigenous population are most affected and
deprived of proper access to health services and money, which are considered imperative in
the prevention and management of diseases (Morris, Sikora, Tosteson & Davies, 2013).
Price of doctors’ fees, drugs and conveyance to reach healthcare centres are most
often devastating, both for the indigenous children and their relatives who require to care for
the kids and pay for their treatment. Under worst circumstances, families that are poor often
have to sell their property under the encumbrance of their child’s illness. Government reports
suggested that on an average, the indigenous Australians earn almost half the income of non-
indigenous Australians (Aifs.gov.au, 2018). In contrast, as per data from the Chair in
Indigenous Governance (2018) although the regular discrete income of the entire population
was an estimated $29,769, but merely $19,132 for a Canadian person of Aboriginal ancestry,
and an overwhelming $14,616 for a Canada Aboriginal existing on reserve. Time and again it
has been suggested that poverty is a major contributing factor to ill health and acts as a
barrier to children’s access to the health amenities. The poor indigenous people of both
Australia and Canada cannot pay for good health, together with adequate quantities of food
and health care facilities (Agarwal, Satyavada, Kaushik & Kumar, 2018).
Mossialos, Wenzl, Osborn and Sarnak (2016) affirms that health care system in
Canada is under the protection of the federal law and the services are informed by five
discrete principles namely, comprehensiveness, universality, portability, accessibility, and
public administration (Chambers & Burnett, 2017). Thus, it can be stated that for both
Canada and Australia, indigenous children living in poverty are less likely to procure
treatment services from family physicians and/or to acquire preventive and secondary care,
thus being more susceptible to report adverse familiarities of care. Traditional education amid
most indigenous children of Canada was achieved with the use of different techniques such
as, practice and socialisation, observation, community participation, and oral teachings (Kim