Closing the Gap Report: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health

This report examines the Closing the Gap initiative, focusing on health disparities between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non-indigenous Australians. It explores the campaign's goals, which aim to improve health outcomes and life expectancy by 2030. The report discusses the roles of patient escorts, challenges they face, and the importance of cultural liaison officers in healthcare. It highlights the Closing the Gap funding and its impact, such as enabling access to healthcare services. The report emphasizes the need for government commitment and public involvement to achieve health equality for indigenous communities. The report also addresses funding myths and the need for equitable resource allocation to address the higher burden of disease among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The analysis uses a case study of a patient, Matt, to illustrate the initiative's practical effects.

Running Head: CLOSING THE GAP 1
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Name
Institution

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Introduction
As a nurse based at a hospital in Brisbane, have come across this Matt who is an inpatient
and he is an Aboriginal and Torres man. Currently Matt is waiting for transfer to the discharge
lounge. After he is discharged, Matt will continue with his care at her mother’s home in Kirwan,
Townsville. Now during one of her mother’s visit to the hospital, through the help of Closing the
Gap funding, Matt’s mother was able to travel from Townsville and Brisbane and through that
money, she was able to fund her food and accommodation in a local hotel. This was a special
treatment to her. Now in this paper, we are going to look at what Close the Gap is as well as the
Closing the Gap.
The campaign on Close the Gap is aimed at closing the gap on the healthiness and the
gap on health life expectancy amid the people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, and the
available non-indigenous Australians that are in the same age group. The campaign building is
based on the proof that shows some considerable improvements in the status of Torres Strait
Islander and Aboriginal health which can be achieved by the year 2030. This is the reason the
Australia’s peak indigenous and non-indigenous bodies of health, the organizations on civil
rights; the NGOs are working jointly with a goal of achieving fairness in wellbeing and life
expectancy in general for the people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Dover &
Goodman, 2018).
Discussion
Close the gap is a campaign on social justice that it’s launching took place in 2007
(Duffy, 2018). The main reason for creating this campaign was to serve as a response to social
justice report in the year 2005. The campaigns operation is by the organization of human rights

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and non-governmental organizations, Torres Strait Islander and Australia’s peak Aboriginal and
non-Indigenous health organization coalition. Close the Gap campaign has a committee that runs
it and at times Dr. Jackie Huggins is the chairperson, the co-chair is the National Congress of
Australia’s First Peoples, and the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health
Organization (NACCHO) CEO, Ms. Patricia Turner. The board that steers Close the Gap has a
number of organizations as well as expert advisers. Each and every year, there are events for
individuals and organizations across Australia hosted on Close the Gap National Day. The
signing of pledges by people requesting for Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal health equality
within a generation also happens on this day (Gisonda, O’Neill, Roskam, Begg, Goldsworthy,
Threat, & Steward, 2018).
Closing the Gap
Closing the Gap, in contrast, refers to a plan used by the administration that looks to
minimize the drawback amid Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal people with respect to access
of early childhood education, life expectancy, and death of children, education achievement, and
outcomes of payment. Closing the Gap is an official obligation made by all the governments of
Australia in order to attain the health equality of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander within a
period of twenty-five years. Closing the growth of the Gap was in reaction to the report on social
justice call in 2005 as well as the campaign on social justice by Close the Gap. An agreement
between Torres Strait Islander and the Australian Governments was achieved in the year 2008
with the aim of working together in order to realize fairness in wellbeing standing and life
expectation amid Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal people and non-indigenous Australians

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by 2035’ when the signing of the indigenous health equality summit statement took place
(Henrich, & Simpson, 2018). In order to monitor change, measurable targets for monitoring
change have been put in place by the Government of Australian Council to understand the
wellbeing of the Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal population.
The fifth major finding of AHRC Close Gap 2018 focuses on a ‘funding myth’ in relation
to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health. Undeniably, a lot of indigenous affairs areas have
to be tackled as it hinders growth. That is the plan of devoted expenditure on health becoming
something for wasting taxpayer money (Holcombe, 2018). Nevertheless, if there is really
seriousness in achieving the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander equality on health inside a
generation, a new strategy of Closing the Gap has to contain obligations to realistic and equitable
levels of commitments (indexed in accordance to their needs).
Increased expenditure on Torres Strait Islander Population and Aboriginal health ought to
barely be a shock. Expenditure on the aged, for instance, is of high rate because each and
everyone knows that the aged have increased physical conditions requirements. Similarly, Torres
Strait Islander Population and Aboriginal have, on average, 2.3 times the burden of disease on
the people that are non-indigenous. Nevertheless, on the basis of per individual, the health
expenditure by the Government of Australia was $1.38 per Torres Strait Islander person for
every $1.00 spends for each non-indigenous individual in the year 2013 to 2014. Therefore, for
the duration of strategizing on closing the Gap, the government of Australian wasn’t
proportionate with such considerably bigger and extra difficult health requirements (HRJune20,
2018).

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This remains the case since no native Australians depend extensively on providers of
health from the private sector to provide a lot of their requirements in addition to governments
support. Generally, the situation for Torres Straits Islander and Aboriginal health can be
characterized as a ‘market failure’ system. The foundations that are private won't make up for the
deficit. The intervention by the Australian government on the market raises the expenditure as
directed on the following recommendations. The loose Gap on the Government of Australian can
take the chair over the broadening rate of mortality and the gaps of life expectancy, yet uphold
target of closing such gaps with no more funds being added. Certainly, the Campaign believes
that the Government of Australia’s position is totally indefensible in that regard (Webber,
Yowell, Ekins, & Miller, 2018).
The term patient escort refers the person in charge of taking care of the patient
(Holcombe, 2018). For example, this is the person that moves the patient from remote areas to
regional areas or from regional to health centers in the urban areas so that the patient can receive
health care services (Ryan, 2018). Patient escorts have various roles that they play in their day to
day activities. For instance, they are in charge of helping patients in and out of cars, ambulances,
taxis and also helicopters. They also perform the duty of lifting patients on and off beds. They
move patients to and from accessing special services as well as treatment areas. Patient escorts
also play the role of comforting patients and their families through encouragement, support, and
also feeding them. They also serve as transporters of equipment and suppliers by picking-up
orders that have been requisitioned and delivering them to the appropriate areas of treatment and
patient care areas (Scott, Rowe, & Pollock, 2018).
Challenges faced by patients’ escorts

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Patient escort sometimes may not be able to give a proper explanation of on what the
patient is suffering from this happens in situations where the patient is unable to communicate be
himself. Communication barrier between the patient's escort and the medical professional
sometimes is a problem because both the patient escort and the doctor might not be able to
communicate properly (Holcombe, 2018). Reduction of atmospheric pressure on some of the
patient might cause problems to the patient being transported which becomes a challenge to the
patient escort (Johnson, 2019). In a bus, patient escort faces the challenge of the limited space
and sometimes congestion as a result of fellow passengers something which creates issues of
patient care.
The services of the Torres Strait Island and Aboriginal Liaison acts as a link culturally
amid the health experts, the patients that have been identified as Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander as well as the patient families. The work of Liaison officers is to help in infringing any
alleged communication obstacles hence the Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal patients and
their families to understand their hospitalization and healing better (Lefebvre, & Brodeur, 2017).
There is support for both the patients and their families through various means. For instance,
through the provision of information, support emotionally and culturally for Torres Strait
Islander and Aboriginal patients as well as their families to assist in service delivery. There is
also patient travel organization as well as accommodation. Negotiation and advocacy for
recommendation to social laborers and services for support when required, discussions with the
hospital staff looking for additional information about the history of the patient and the family or
discussing any special needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The patients and
families are also supported by facilitating transfers to other facilities of SCHHS, community-

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based services such as the HHS. There is also the provision of practical assistance and support to
help others and members of the family.
Conclusion
To conclude, it is clear that the report given above is important if the achievements are to
be made in initiating closing the gap. Therefore, it is important for the government to include the
public in their efforts to achieve the closing the gap initiative. From the case study above we get
to witness Matt’s mother enjoying the benefits of closing the gap initiative when she goes to visit
her son in the hospital. She uses closing the gap funds to pay for her food as well as
accommodation. Therefore, closing the gap initiative ought to be upheld because it treats the
indigenous people in a special way and it enables them get everything (Parkinson, 2018).

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