Cultural Safety in Healthcare for Indigenous Australians

Thank you for sharing your personal experience of working with indigenous people of
Australia as an Ambulance officer. You have specified an incident you witnessed where the
indigenous woman was reluctant in receiving care form the healthcare provider as he was a
male, and you had to act as a mediator between the patient and the healthcare provider to
address the gender issue. Such incidents are quite common in healthcare industry and
considering such situations, healthcare professionals need to maintain cultural safety while
providing care to the indigenous people of Australia. You have mentioned in your post that
registered nurses are required to provide best care that includes a safe environment where the
cultures and beliefs of the patients are respected (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia,
2018). I agree with you point that integrating cultural safety reconfigures healthcare sector
allowing greater equity of released access and in this way it is possible to provide a patient-
centred care which is quite effective as it involves patients in the process of making decisions
(Laverty, McDermott & Calma, 2017).. Also, you stated that nurses may not be fully aware
of all the cultural needs of the patients, but I also support your opinion that they should be
flexible enough to work positively as per the cultural requirements of the patients.
As per your experience, gender sensitivity is a common issue while working with
indigenous Australians and as per studies (Ford et al., 2018), there are some specific gender
related norms among the indigenous people of Australia where the forms of addressing
people or having an eye contact with opposite gender creates issues. In this context you
identified a fact that gender specificity should be considered in order to provide the best care
which is culturally safe as well (The University of Western Australia, 2018). Therefore,
nurses and other healthcare providers should be aware of the cultural safety and be conscious
to apply problem solving skills in order to provide a holistic as well as effective care to the
patients of all cultures.