Indigenous Health Services

This assignment explores the Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance Northern Territory (Amsant) and their role in providing healthcare services to the Indigenous community. It discusses the service profile, advocacy efforts, and impact on the health and wellbeing of Australian Indigenous people.

Running head: INDIGENOUS HEALTH SERVICES
INDIGENOUS HEALTH SERVICES
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:
1. Introduction:

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INDIGENOUS HEALTH SERVICES
Aboriginal community controlled health services can be defined as the
incorporated aboriginal organizations that are initiated by as well as based in
a local aboriginal community. One of the main driving factors that had
resulted in the development of such community health care centers specific
for the aboriginal community is to provide healthcare services that align with
the cultural traditions and expectations of the people and also cater to the
healthcare need specific to the Aboriginal community (St Clair et al., 2019).
Amsant is one such community that has been meeting the healthcare needs
of the people in the Northern Territory of the nation. This assignment will
show how Amsant had been successful in helping the aboriginal community
meet all their healthcare needs and is providing them care that aligns with
their culture. This assignment will help to first develop an idea about the
service profile of Amsant and will also show the external driving factors that
had led to the development of this organization. It would also show the
different health services provided by the organization to the community.
2.1 Description of the health service profile:
The Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance Northern Territory (Amsant)
can be explained as the peak body for the aboriginal community controlled
health services (ACCHS) functioning in the northern territory. It mainly helps
by advocating for health equity for the Indigenous community and at the
same time, they are also seen to support the provision of high quality
comprehensive primary healthcare services for the aboriginal people in the
region.
2.2 WALS team

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In order to support the different staffs working in this organization,
there is another specific unit of experts called the Workforce and Leadership
Support Unit (WALS) (Amsant, 2018). This team called WALS team is seen to
comprise of Workforce, Integrated Team Care (Chronic disease) support,
Leadership, GP Registrar support and cultural safety. This team is seen to
focus on the supporting the various members of Asmant in helping them to
undertake different key projects that address the various types of significant
arenas and also help to build and sustain stakeholder engagement. They also
help in providing input into the different policies and program development
so that the best outcome is achieved for the aboriginal community.
2.3. Advocacy by Amsant:
One of the key roles of Amsant is advocating strongly to the governments in
authority and to their agencies and the different types of key stakeholders
along with public. They mainly advocate for the improvement of the
programs and the resources for comprehensive Aboriginal primary health
care so that they can “close the gap” about the various disadvantages faced
by the aboriginal community. They also advocate about addressing the
shortfalls in the Aboriginal access to different types of the specialist services
like that of ear and eye health, dental, alcohol, mental health, maternal and
children’s programs, and other drugs (St Clair et al., 2019). It is believed that
although such needs are documented in policies but they are still
unaddressed among the different initiatives taken by government and in the
funding programs.
3.1. External factors that have influenced establishment of the health
service:
Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (Acchs) can be
explained as the independent legal entities, which the aboriginal individuals

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mainly control under that of the principles of self-determination. It has been
found that Amsant follows the principles of self-determination and it has
been found that their accountability procedures mainly incorporate holding
of annual general meetings as well as regular elections of the management
committees that are open and can be attended by all the members of the
relevant Aboriginal community (Wakerman et al., 2016).
3.2. Community control:
They give importance to the aspect of “community control” which
enables the people seeking for the healthcare services to determine the
nature of the services, which they want to receive. They also have the right
to participate in the planning as well as implementation and evaluation of
those services.
3.3. Primary healthcare:
Amsant is also seen to follow the principles set by the community
controlled primary healthcare approaches as set by the National Aboriginal
Health Strategy (1989). The principles that are seen to be incorporated is the
holistic view of the healthcare that includes the physical, spiritual, social as
well as emotional health of people. Another important principle that guides
their services is capacity building of the community controlled organizations
and the community itself for supporting the local and regional solutions or
health outcomes. They also guide local community control and participation
along with collaborating across sectors (Russell et al., 2017). The services
that they provide also successfully recognize the inter-relationship between
the good health and social determinists of health. All over the years, it had
been noticed that there is a huge gap in health status between the
indigenous and non-indigenous people and Amsant had taken a vow to help
the community overcome the health gap to achieve health equity in the
nation.

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4.1 Healthcare care practices and impact on the Australian Indigenous
people’s health and wellbeing:
One of the healthcare initiatives taken by Amsant is embedding
Continuous Quality improvement (CQI) into the aboriginal Primary Healthcare
and has been approved by NT aboriginal Health forum. This program helps
by supporting the implementation of the various quality initiatives that are
undertaken across all the healthcare services. They bring all such initiatives
together and provide a consistent approach for promotion of the clinical
quality improvement across the region (Jordan et al., 2018). However, they
had ensured that this is achieved along with flexibility for adaptation of that
of the local needs. They mainly aim in improving the health outcomes for the
indigenous people by following the process of continuous quality
improvement approaches (Best & Fredericks, 2017).
4.2. Digital health:
Digital health can be explained as the utilization of the information
management technology for delivering healthcare and successfully sharing
information with that of the other healthcare providers. It has been found
that NT ACCHSs have led the nation with the program called Digital Health
by utilization of the electronic Clinical Information Systems (CIS) for about
the last decade and this had reported on the NT Aboriginal Health Key
Performance Indicators from the time of the year of 2009. The Amsant Digital
Health team is given the My Health Record after January 31 unless they
opted out from their own will. Their initiative of Health Care homes is seen
to progress, Telehealth services are also expanding into various types of
services (Harfield et al., 2015). Orchestreams reporting had now been found
to be replaced by that of the Health Data Portal.
4.3. APO NT

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INDIGENOUS HEALTH SERVICES
APO NT also called the Aboriginal Peak Organizations Northern
Territory—APO NT can be explained as the alliance that mainly includes
three groups of stakeholders. These are Central Land Council (CLC), the
Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance of the NT (AMSANT) and Northern Land
Council (NLC). This alliance was found to be developed for providing more
fruitful as well as effective responses to different types of key issues based
on the joint interests and concern that are affecting the indigenous people in
the NT (Brazionis et al., 2018). They also included the action to provide
practical policy solutions for that of the government. This alliance is also
seen to be committed to increase involvement of indigenous people in
development of policy and its implementation along with the expansion of
the opportunities for Aboriginal community control (Ward et al., 2016). It also
contributes in strengthening networks among the peak Aboriginal
organizations as well as that of the smaller regional Aboriginal organizations
in the NT.
5. Conclusion:
The services of Amsant support the social and emotional wellbeing
(SEWB) of the communities. They understand that social determinants play a
great role in betterment of the SEWB. The best way found by them to make
the government aware of this is to lobby and advocate for the improvements
of social determinists of health for the Aboriginal people. This is done so that
they can ultimately get the opportunity of working with the government to
develop the conditions of the indigenous people and thereby contribute to
betterment of physical and mental wellbeing of the people by overcoming
any addiction issues. The services provided by them align with their cultural
expectations and had been trying to bridge the health gap between the
indigenous and non-indegenous people.

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References:
Amsant.org.au (2018), Aboriginal Medical Services alliance Northern
Territory, retrieved from: http://www.amsant.org.au/
Best, O., & Fredericks, B. (2017). Yatdjuligin: Aboriginal and Torres Strait
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