Indigenous Nursing Assignment PDF

Running head:INDIGENOUS NURSING
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

INDIGENOUS NURSING1
Introduction
Ever since a long time, Indigenous Australians have faced severe discrimination in
terms of healthcare, livelihood, and other basic human rights. Multiple surveys and studies
have found that they have drastically lower life expectancy than that of their non-Indigenous
counterparts. The gap in life expectancy between both the groups is as high as 10.6 years for
males and 9.5 years for that of women. They suffer from diseases around 2.5 times more than
that of non-Indigenous Australians (Mazel, 2018 p.2). There have been several laws and
government policies aiming towards the overall improvement of the Aboriginals and Torres
Strait Islanders. Still, many of them have been vastly unsuccessful or resulted in dominating
them further rather than giving them equal rights. Throughout the course of history, many
laws were passed, resulting in significant discrimination. This included but was not limited to
the fact that the Indigenous Australians were not considered to be the citizens of Australia.
They had no rights over their lands, and the government could remove any Indigenous
children under the age of 16 from their parents, termed popularly as the 'stolen generation'
(Bth.humanrights.gov.au., 2020). This essay aims to report on certain laws that historically
impacted the Indigenous Australians, and reflect on the ways that cultural competency can be
useful while providing healthcare to the Indigenous population.
Reporting
Amongst the many laws that discriminated against the Indigenous Australians and
their basic human rights, the Aboriginal Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act
1897 must be mentioned. This act was referred to as supposedly the act to provide better'
protection to the Aboriginal population' and reducing the sale of opium as well (Australian
Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, 2020). Indigenous Australians
suffered from largely opioid abuse-related diseases, and this was considered to be a solution

INDIGENOUS NURSING2
to that. However, this directly gave government the rights control the lives and livelihood of
the Aboriginal population. This law was replaced by Aboriginals Preservation and Protection
Act as well as the Torres Strait Islanders Act in the year 1939. This act paved the way for
Protectors in each district to control possible aspects of aboriginal life. This continued up
until the 1970s. This included controlling where they worked and lived, wages, land
ownership as well as removing children from the families by force. This period is described
as the period of 'living under the act' by Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders
(Qhrc.qld.gov.au., 2020).
Throughout history, there have been many accounts of the effects of these acts on
Indigenous Australians. From the given piece of writings, it can be easily understood that
Cassie and her family, along with other Aboriginal families of their mob, are being forced to
move to the other part of the town. Cassie's narration also mentions that it is not the first time
that she and her community has been moved. She words explicitly state that the 'white people'
and 'council fellas' tend to just give them a couple of weeks' notice before "herding us up and
moving us on." This suggested that the people of the community heavily related to the time
they had no rights under the act, and they were forced to move even if they strongly protested
against it. It also said that Cassie was afraid of moving away from her mother, suggesting that
she thought it was a very strong possibility that she will be separated from her family.
Cassie's story was not the only one; there are countless recollection and stories
regarding how the Indigenous Australians were treated. It has been said that they were treated
the same way by the European settlers as they would wild animals. An old newspaper
described the events of Aboriginal children forcibly taken away from their families, as well
as the Indigenous women being carried away. The act of 1939 allowed the government
officials to move the Indigenous population by force to one reserve from another, as
happened in Cassie's story (Humanrights.gov.au., 2020).

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From the National Aboriginal Health Strategy Working Party (Australia), we know
that health to the Indigenous population refers to the overall emotional, social as well as
cultural wellbeing of the community, rather than physical wellbeing. Quoting the same-
"Health" to Aboriginal (and Torres Strait Islander) peoples is a matter of determining
all aspects of their life, including control over their physical environment of dignity, of
community self-esteem, and of justice. It is not merely a matter of the provision of doctors,
hospitals, medicines or the absence of disease and incapacity."
-National Aboriginal Health Strategy Working Party (Australia). (1989)
So it is no surprise that this sort of control over their lives had a severe impact on their
physical wellbeing, but also their dignity and psychology (Mazel, 2018 p. 10).
Relating
Keeping in mind the previous scenario, I can understand why Indigenous Australians
may have certain reservations with government facilities and non-Indigenous nurses. As a
non-Indigenous Australian nurse, I cannot say that I understood their issues on a personal
level, I could relate to and understand their apprehension of government institutions and
Caucasians. I understood why many of my Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients
decide to opt for early discharge despite it being against medical advice (Bryce et al., 2016 p.
740). There have been multiple times when Aboriginal patients have claimed that we do not
understand their disease or that we are misdiagnosing them. There have also been instances
where clear abnormalities were normalised by the families. A study shows that chronic wet
cough in Aboriginal children is often normalised by their families, and they do not consider it
a problem. In reality, this type of cough usually signifies underlying issues such as respiratory
illness (D'Sylva et al., 2019 p. 833-843).