Indigenous Health Inequalities in Australia

Running head: INDIGENOUS HEALTH PERSPECTIVES
INDIGENOUS HEALTH PERSPECTIVES
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1INDIGENOUS HEALTH PERSPECTIVES
Introduction:
The inequalities among the health of Indigenous and non-Indigenous inhabitants remain to be
dominant within Australia. Indigenous population of Australia are the people who have been
descendants of groups who existed in Australia before the British colonisation (Azzopardi et
al., 2018). The health position of Australia’s indigenous people is deprived in contrast to the
other of the Australian population. There is an assessed break of approximately 17 years
among the Indigenous and other populations life expectancy in Australia. This assignment
will focus on a narrative essay on an Australian indigenous person’s health perspective,
issues he faced and facilities he received and the present condition (Moore et al., 2015).
The indigenous people of Australia are deprived of opportunities to stay healthy as
other populations in the country. The economic and social disadvantage they experience lead
them to greater health risk, as the condition they live in does not witness good health (Castro,
Savage & Kaufman, 2015). The narration is about a person, named Mr. X, who belongs to the
aboriginal group of Australia, suffering from diabetes. Communicable disease has become
one the most common diseases that is encounter by the indigenous population of Australia
(Sayers et al., 2017). Between the year of 2012-2013, it was found that around 13% of the
population was suffering from communicable disease. It is due to their environment, style of
living, nutrition they uptake and the physical activities they perform in their daily life.
Education has been seen to play on of the major role in enhancing health issues in the
population.
Mr. X, is at his 40 and suffering from some communicable disease. As he was not so
aware about the issues and disuses, he was avoiding the symptoms and now the diabetes has
become a serious issue in his life. So he decided to visit hospital for the treatment process. He
visits hospital and faces various discrimination and lack of facilities as being an individual
from the aboriginal community. Other reasons due to which he was lacking the health facility

2INDIGENOUS HEALTH PERSPECTIVES
were education and lack of knowledge about health status and facilities they are provided
with, social and economic status which became important for getting a proper treatment, as
he had no knowledge about the facilities he has been provided with by the government. The
socioeconomic status of these people is also a major reason behind their health issue. Due to
poverty, they end up staying in overcrowded housings and poor hygiene which enhances the
chances of communicable disease spread (Lawson, Woods & McKenna, 2019). The main
reason of the occurrence of the communicable diseases in them was their poor sanitization
and nutrition uptake. They were lacking proper diet and healthy environment (Cerón et al.,
2016). Mr. X was also living a life like the other, poor sanitization, lack of income which was
not helping him lead a healthy and comfortable lifestyle. And as he had less education and
economic value, he was hesitating to visit any health care system which was effecting his
health in a major way. He had no knowledge that government was providing all health
facilities to people like him without any discrimination.
As Mr. X starts interaction with the healthcare facilities, he finds out that government has
provided them with various opportunities to improve their health and living condition. One of
the laws is the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR),
which states the right of each and every individual of Australia to attain proper physical and
mental condition according to article 12 (Saul, 2016). The right also states that each
individual should receive adequate amount of standard living, food, housing and clothing and
the educational right. The article 2 also states that the government will address the
requirement and availability to facilities in proper amount with any kind of discrimination. As
people of the indigenous community lack the proper knowledge about the healthcare
facilities, the death rate in the population is higher than the other population due to lack of
healthcare (Waterworth et al., 2016). The lack of economic status also keeps them deprived
from proper health facility, as medicines and proper treatment sometimes become very costly