UNCC300 - Aboriginal Health and Education: Shared Responsibility

This essay critically appraises the healthcare conditions of Indigenous Australians, highlighting the disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. It argues that shared responsibility for the common good is not being realized and proposes solutions to address this challenge. The essay emphasizes the importance of culturally competent care, strengthened government programs, and overcoming cultural barriers. It suggests training for healthcare professionals, the implementation of cultural competency tools, and the role of nurses in advocating for patients' rights and promoting cross-cultural healthcare. Furthermore, it highlights the significance of maintaining traditional practices and knowledge, ensuring equal opportunities, and conducting further research to improve healthcare equity for Aboriginal Australians. The essay concludes by emphasizing the need for cultural security, advanced technical equipment, and a human rights approach to address the disadvantages faced by Indigenous communities. Desklib offers a platform to explore similar essays and study resources for students.

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Health and Education of Aboriginal
Community
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Part 1
Shared responsibility for the common good is not being realized
This particular essay wants to critically appraise and examine the common good of the health
care condition of the indigenous people in the community. Till now for a long time period, the
healthcare condition among the groups of social community and the indigenous communities are
not the same and there is a trend of enlarging the disparity (Clifford, McCalman, Bainbridge &
Tsey, 2015). In Australia, the Indigenous Australians have highly experienced the healthcare
gap. The essay will critically examine the common good of the Indigenous people that have not
been realized. After that, it will provide four paragraphs that will address the possible solutions
in order to realize the common good of the Indigenous community. Also, it will end by providing
a brief conclusion related to the issue.
For the health professionals, culturally competent care is considered to be the necessary and
inherent element that comprises of cultural respect, cultural safety, and cultural awareness
(Ferguson et al., 2016). The culturally competent care provided by the healthcare professionals
are not only significant to all the Indigenous communities but also to the health students.
Meanwhile to provide with culturally competent care realizing the common good deals with
various challenges that need to be reformed and improved. The wide gap of health status among
the Indigenous and the non-indigenous people is not only found in Australia but also to the other

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developed countries like Canada and the US. Also in these countries migrant health care
professionals those who are employed are increasing day-by-day based on the issue of shortage
of nursing (Day, Nakata, Nakata & Martin, 2015). This, in turn, presents new solutions in order
to solve the issues in today’s generation. The culturally competent healthcare provisions is a vital
tool that makes it simple for the social, economic and political disadvantages of the Indigenous
communities and supposes to clear the gap that enlarges the disparity of the health among the
wide range of the population.
Part 2
Propose ways to address the challenge
The first priority for healthcare professionals is to undergo sufficient training based on culturally
competent care. Across the world, there is a number of territory institution with different
faculties and courses that provide with the training of culturally competent care. It can be seen
that Catholic Social Teaching (CST), covers all the elements of life such as the spiritual,
personal, political and economic (Briskman, 2016). In the principles of CST human dignity is at
the center that tends of holistic development. Each and every person must have the sufficient
knowledge of the resources and goods of the community that should be balanced with the needs
of disposed and disadvantages. By strengthening the government programs of the Indigenous
people the challenges could be reduced. Cultural barriers play a vital role in addressing the health

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inequity of the aboriginals. The differences in the biological and the physical factors could
protect the aboriginals from participating actively in their health treatment. It can be seen that
cultural training centers and Aboriginal Interpreter Service could be found in the aboriginal
communities that provide cultural training for the staff of healthcare who are working with the
indigenous people (D’Aprano et al., 2016). In order to provide solutions for improving cultural
competencies, it is important for healthcare providers and organizations to have a mutual
understanding to get innovative solutions.
The healthcare professionals are provided with a number of equipped and better awareness and
cultural competencies that will reduce the disparities of the healthcare. It is observed that
responding adequately to the cultural barriers clearly means implementing culture into the
delivery of the service or combining the clinical behaviors, skills, and practices in the healthcare
system (Grant & Greenop, 2018). It is significant for the Australians to provide appropriate
contributions of how the services are generated, planned and delivered for the indigenous people.
It is also highly recommended to adopt the tool of cultural competency care that facilitated self-
assessment. For the aboriginal and the non-aboriginal Australians in order to decrease the health
disparities, it is important to strategize the practices of the linking policies. It is helpful for
healthcare providers to master the respectful and non-judgemental culture oriented
communication skills. With this, the providers of the healthcare could demonstrate the system of
healthcare to the aboriginal and convince them to trust the providers and system. In addressing

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the challenges of the indigenous people not only healthcare professionals but also the nurses
plays an important role (Brimblecombe et al., 2017). Nurses in the public health workplaces
improve the health of the indigenous people by upstream navigating and directing nursing care.
The work of the upstream resources is to provide with the actual source of disease that eliminates
infirmity and proposes the difficulties. Nurses constantly focus towards undertaking the
advocacy of the patient that presents the respect for the traditions, beliefs, and culture of all the
patients. Advocacy of the patient also promotes effective and ethical cross-culture healthcare for
the individual whose background is culturally diverse. In Australia, some of the practical
methods are already in process that needs to be developed by the nurses.
Apart from providing culturally considerate care for the aboriginal communities the clinical
nurses also operate a charitable club along with the volunteers that facilitate the breakdown of
the stereotypes and misconceptions towards the Indigenous Australians (Rigney, 2017). The
researchers of nurse facilitates the invention of few healthcare organizations which are
governmental and non-governmental that provides linguistically and culturally adequate services.
Ultimately advocating the health of the aboriginal community not only requires systems and
knowledge but also empathy for the people those who are seriously affected by the disparities in
the healthcare system. Developing and maintaining the traditional practices, traditional cultural
expressions, and traditional knowledge could help in overcoming the challenge faced by the
indigenous community. Also, it will be helpful in making the use intergenerational conversion of

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the indigenous language. The comparative indicators must be balanced to provide with the well-
being of the indigenous and non-indigenous people related to their understanding of their well-
being and visions (Panaretto, Wenitong, Button & Ring, 2014). It is stated in the human rights
system that instead of discrimination the indigenous communities are provided with an equal
opportunity that includes identifying their varied cultural status. In order to increase the growth
of the indigenous aboriginal Australians, it is needed to increase the programs and services. This
will help in maintaining health status and decreasing the existing inequality in the healthcare
system.
Health equity is a core value and fundamental human rights of the universal healthcare coverage.
In Australia, it is significant to protect and help the disadvantaged aboriginal Australians. To
protect the aboriginal Australians of the universal healthcare coverage it is unacceptable for the
cultural barriers. It is significant for all the communities to clear the gap between healthcare
equity with the creation. More research and work is required to be performed while determining
the role of the nurses and healthcare professionals in addressing the challenges of the indigenous
people (Maru, Smith, Sparrow, Pinho & Dube, 2014). It is observed that by ensuring the cultural
security and overcoming the cultural barriers along with excellent technical equipment’s could
provide equitable access to the Australian aboriginal in the health care system. Globally the
indigenous people actively examined the significance of the approach to human rights to address

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the disadvantages. Therefore the essay not only provides with the issues but also with the
solutions to address the challenges.

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References
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