Nursing and Health Inequality among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People in Australia

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

1
NURSING
According to the Australian Human Rights Commission (2018), the Aboriginal and
the Torres Strait Islander people suffer from health in-equality due to the poor social
determinants of health. The following assignment aims to analyse how I am going to shape
my future working experience as a registered nurse (RN) under clinical settings in
community level. The paper will initiate with my personal reflection through Gibbs reflective
cycle and then will highlight my three different weeks of yarning cycle activity and how
these activities helped me increase my involvement with the Aboriginals and the Torres Strait
Islander people.
While I was assigned to work on the subject of contemporary health and well-being of
the indigenous population in Australia, I was bit surprised. The first thing that came to my
mind was why a population which is barely civilised can gain such an importance that we are
required to conduct a study over it. My experience about Aboriginal population before
commencing this subject was completely different. I used to think that this group of
population are barriers towards modernization in Australia. Aboriginals or Torres Strait
Islanders suffers from unemployment and substance abuse and thus a burden over the society.
While learning more about this subject, a personal evaluation occurred within me.
Before I was to think that the aboriginals people, the people with darker skin are illiterate and
are not civilised enough to enter into the main race of the society. However, while learning
more about their culture, civilization and way of living, I gradually came to realization that
my though process about them was biased. Via going through the statistics I cam e to an
understanding that their deprivation, lack of proper access to the healthcare services and lack
of proper exposure and governmental support is the reason behind their lack of progression.
This analysis of their past history opened my mind and changed my perspective toward them.
I started developing a sympathetic corner for them and generate a tendency to know more and
work for them in order to reduce this health inequality among the Aboriginal population.

2
NURSING
The things which well badly is my biased attitude towards the Aboriginals and the
Torres Strait Islanders people. According to Ecker et al. (2014), biased attitudes of the non-
indigenous population are the reason behind the increase in the health-inequality among the
Aboriginal population. This biased attitude is the reason behind the social isolation of the
aboriginal people and this given rise to inequality. Health inequality and lack of proper
employment and financial support make them suffer from depression and thereby becoming
victims of substance abuse (Skinner et al. 2013).
The thing which went right is providing me with an opportunity to research and know
more about the Aboriginal community. These readings acted as an eye-opener. It helped me
to overcome from my pre-conceived notion about the Aboriginal population in Australia and
I gradually came across the actual harsh reality. I understood that inequality and negligence
from the society are reason behind their poor health status and health inequality. This positive
approach will help me to understand the health-related consequences about the Aboriginal
people. The overall positive approach can be improved further via indulging into effective
communication with the aboriginal population. This effective communication through inter-
personal communication skills will help me to understand their though process and hurdles in
experiencing health inequality. According to UTS Indigenous Graduate Attributes, it is the
duty of the nursing professional to understand the basic aspect of the gaps in knowledge of
the Aboriginals and act in a culturally competent manner.
In conclusion, I would like to highlight that at the before commencing the subject I
should have overcome my pre-conceived understanding about the Aboriginals and Torres
Strait Islander. This would help me to overcome my biased attitude towards them. The
positive feelings are I gradually overcame my biased attitude via studying in deep about
them. I could have transformed my overall experience further via indulging into effective
communication with the Aboriginal people. During the experience I learned about myself that