HSC230 Module: Cultural Safety in Healthcare Position Statement

This report presents a position statement on cultural safety in healthcare, focusing on the CDU Wellness Centre's commitment to providing accessible and respectful services to all individuals, regardless of their cultural background. The report emphasizes the importance of cultural safety in improving health outcomes for indigenous populations and highlights the role of effective communication and health literacy in fostering a culturally safe environment. It examines external influences, such as historical factors and media portrayals, that can impact cultural safety. The report also addresses barriers to implementing the position statement, including language and cultural differences, and suggests strategies such as cultural competence training and the use of translators to overcome these challenges. The assignment underscores the need for continuous efforts to create a healthcare environment where all individuals feel valued and respected.

Running Head: CULTURAL SAFETY IN HEALTH CARE
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Cultural Safety in Health Care
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

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CDU Wellness Centre
Part One
Background and Position Statement
As an integral part of Charles Darwin University, the CDU Wellness Centre aims to offer
various wellness programs including fitness and health examinations, cardiovascular health
assessments quality sleep, body composition, among other health and fitness services. In light of
the fact that its prices average way below the market, it is accessible and affordable to all the
people regardless of their socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. It focuses on assisting
individuals to get better outcomes with respect to their social, physical, and mental health.
Originally, the organization was solely dedicated to offering clinical psychology services such as
cognitive training. While it still offers these services, CDU Wellness Centre has expanded its
services to incorporate social wellbeing, healthy bodies, and exercise (Charles Darwin
University, 2019). Cultural safety alludes to the gathering and use of knowledge regarding the
indigenous people’s principles, norms, and values. The cultural safety process is largely used in
interactions that patients and physicians may face. Cultural safety entails fighting the cultural
disparities of people, policies, and regions in an attempt to enhance the health outcomes of
indigenous people. When this is applied to the CDU Wellness Centre context, cultural safety
entails offering quality services regardless of the cultural inclination of a person. CDU Wellness
Centre acknowledges the fact that indigenous populations are more probable to access and get
better outcomes in the scenario where the delivered services are culturally safe and respectful.
One of the overarching themes of CDU Wellness Centre’s values and code of conduct revolves
around propagating cultural safety.

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CDU Wellness Centre’s key collaboration agreements contain cultural safety as one of
the prime themes. A great deal of activities within the organization largely involves fostering
learning environments that are culturally safe for indigenous students, patients, doctors, and so
forth. As an organization that is nationally renowned, CDU Wellness Centre is sturdily
positioned to identify instances when the organization lacks cultural safety and take corrective
measures, as well as championing for the creation of an environment where there is a sense of
respect for cultural differences. There are various measures enacted by the CDU Wellness Centre
to ensure that cultural safety is strengthened and upheld throughout all the operations of the
organizations. One of these means is through creating genuine partnerships between
organizations, the government, and all the associated stakeholders in an attempt to create a better
place for the indigenous people. Another method through which the CDU Wellness Centre
intends to ensure cultural safety is accumulating knowledge about the current and past values and
principles of the indigenous people. There is also a sense of accountability, wherein the evident
accountability mechanisms at CDU Wellness Centre serve to sensitive all the facility users about
the values and principles of indigenous people while also ensuring that the same is applied in the
correct manner. Considering that the CDU Wellness Centre charges a fee that is average, it
follows that everyone in the community, regardless of their cultural background, can get equal
and fair access to all the services provided in the organization.
Section Two
Importance of Statement
The aforementioned statement is very crucial particularly in delivering an environment
that can be termed as culturally safe. According to research, indigenous populations often
experience negative scenarios with respect to healthcare and education. Service providers acting

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in a manner that diminishes, disempower, or demeans the cultural background of a person are
viewed as acting on a culturally risky manner (Okuyama, Wagner & Bijnen, 2014). Through this
position statement, therefore, the organization can better solve the disparities springing from the
distribution of power in the organization. For instance, through offering the members of the
community a safe platform to air their views about practices they deem culturally risky, the
organization can pinpoint the areas in need of improvements (Shen, 2015). This position
statement is one of the many techniques that serve to solve systemic disparities and enhance the
experiences of individuals from diverse cultures at the CDU Wellness Centre.
Importance of Effective Communication
Ideally, effective communication is highly essential when it comes to the establishment
of a culturally safe environment. Communication generally creates a platform for the interaction
of processes, tasks, and people in a cooperative and purposive fashion in an attempt to attain the
health, safety, and environment (HSE) goals. The manner in which a person communicates about
safety plays a profound role in determining whether or not the other individuals within the
organization will comprehend and take part in the whole process of safety. In other words, the
communication applied will determine whether it will be possible or not to realize a culturally
safe environment. Besides that, understanding the biases, behaviours, attitudes, and norms of
patients that can impact care of patients come in handy in assisting the practitioners to offer
quality care that is accessible to all (Renzaho, Romios, Crock & Sønderlund, 2013). Overall,
effective communication frameworks are essential in the engagement of practitioners in safety
practices, achieving support and cooperation, and most importantly to propagate a culture of
cultural safety. Effective and clear communication not only serves to enhance understanding and

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knowledge in healthcare, but also serves to curb at-risk behaviours and improve safe work
activities.
Relationship between Health Literacy and Effective Communication
A series of research studies have established that the link between improved health
literacy and quality health may be attributed to effective communication within healthcare
organizations (Schulz & Nakamoto, 2013; Al Sayah, Majumdar et al., 2013)). Health literacy
generally alludes to being able to comprehend and apply health information. Unlike people with
good health literacy knowledge, individuals with poor health literacy skills are more prone to
failing to understand health-related information, misunderstanding medical instructions, and
generally experiencing poorer health outcomes. However, there are still viable efforts that health
care professionals can implement to increase the health literacy of their patients. This includes
using plain language, creating materials that convey information in a patient-friendly fashion,
and applying innovative communication techniques including the “teach back” method (Ulrich &
Kear, 2014). On the same note, health care professionals should be educated on issues relating to
effective communication and health literacy.
External Impacts
Historical, social, economic, and political factors continue to shape the manner in which
people from various cultures receive care. When dealing with aboriginal patients, for instance,
health practitioners ought to comprehend the life experiences of this population with respect to
their colonial and historical context. This might entail understanding colonial policies and
practices, and the implications they might have had on the health and social lives of the
indigenous populations. For instance, the high prevalence of smoking among the indigenous
people is tied to the fact that the colonialists used tobacco to pay for labour. Due to the fact that

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the aspect of colonialism is ever present but often ignored in the healthcare setting, it is
frequently referred to as the “big elephant in the room.” Failure to acknowledge this elephant,
practitioners will find it extremely challenging to make appropriate and informed choices that
concern the health of the indigenous people. This also propagates the culture of denying the
implications of colonial factors on the delivery of a culturally safe environment (Betancourt,
Green, Carrillo & Owusu Ananeh-Firempong, 2016). In addition to that, the media portrayal of
the indigenous people plays a significant role in determining the delivery of a culturally safe
environment. The media often portrays the indigenous people in a negative light, which might
include portraying them as violent, drug addicts, and primitive. The eventual outcome of these
negative stereotypes is that the health care professionals will develop racism attitudes when
dealing with patients from these populations, which certainly serves to derail the realization of
culturally safe practice in the health care setting. Notwithstanding, the government has over the
years sought to impose policies that will see all patients, regardless of their cultural affiliations,
receive improved health outcomes.
Barriers to Implementing this Position Statement
Of course, there will be multiple barriers when it comes to implementing this position
statement. It is widely known and accepted that the minority groups face a series of barriers in
acquiring mainstream health care services. Health care barriers to accessing health care for
minority groups are one of the health care concerns that have triggered far-reaching discussions.
Language and cultural barriers are some of the profound challenges to implementing this
position statement. Due to poor training on cultural safety, for instance, most of the practitioners
will overlook the importance of offering quality care despite the cultural background of the
patient. In addition to that, language differences continue to hinder the delivery of culturally safe

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health care. However, there are a number of ways through which these barriers can be overcome.
Cultural competence training among the practitioners, for instance, can come in handy in
improving their ability to interact and communicate effectively with individuals from diverse
cultures (Thomas & Galla, 2013). Ideally, cultural competence entails four prime aspects,
including cross-cultural skills and knowledge, perception of cultural differences, understanding
of a person’s worldview, and understanding of diverse cultural practices (Morello et al., 2013;
Truong, Paradies & Priest, 2014). Also, translators can greatly improve communication between
indigenous patients and health care professionals.

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References
Al Sayah, F., Majumdar, S. R., Williams, B., Robertson, S., & Johnson, J. A. (2013). Health
literacy and health outcomes in diabetes: a systematic review. Journal of general
internal medicine, 28(3), 444-452.
Betancourt, J. R., Green, A. R., Carrillo, J. E., & Owusu Ananeh-Firempong, I. I. (2016).
Defining cultural competence: a practical framework for addressing racial/ethnic
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Charles Darwin University. (2019). CDU to inject fun into election day. Retrieved from
https://www.cdu.edu.au/newsroom/wellness-centre
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