Report: Healthcare Access Issues in Various Australian Regions

This report delves into the critical issue of healthcare access disparities within Australia, highlighting the challenges faced by low-income and indigenous populations. It begins by acknowledging the high ranking of the Australian healthcare system while pointing out areas for improvement, particularly in ensuring equitable access to services. The report emphasizes the impact of these disparities on human dignity and the common good, advocating for improved healthcare provisions to reduce suffering and promote self-respect. It explores barriers such as cultural diversity, economic variations, and physical aspects that affect access. The report recommends strategies like reduced consultation fees, health literacy programs, and improved training for healthcare professionals to address communication gaps and cultural insensitivity. Furthermore, it underscores the importance of appropriate resource allocation and efficient bureaucracy to improve patient outcomes and overall healthcare quality. Finally, the report suggests evaluating reimbursement methodologies and empowering patients to choose their physicians to enhance healthcare services for all Australians. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of timely evaluation of the system.

Lack of Access to Healthcare in Some Parts of Australia
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Lack of Access to Healthcare in Some Parts of Australia
Introduction:
According to experts, the Australian Healthcare system is ranked among the foremost healthcare
systems when compared to other systems across the globe. Although the room for considerable
amount of improvement was identified by professionals over time; however, the complexity of the
system makes it difficult to implement changes that could be accounted as a mutually beneficial
system for patients across all parts of the society. As usual, the rich and upper middle-class
individuals are able to seek the best in class healthcare services given the high source of income. The
low-income groups like me are the ones that suffer the dire consequences of an inefficient public
health care system (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2018).
Human Dignity:
Human Dignity can be understood as the rights of an individual to be respected and considered to be
valued. The ethical treatment and overall significance or morality are the basis of Human Dignity. In
this issue, the lack of medical healthcare facilities have led to a compromise on the human dignity of
the low income groups and the indigenous groups in Australia. As in any healthcare system, the
improvements in the system demand a heavy price. With the immigration of refugees from diverse
countries across the world, Australia is left with no other choice but to upgrade its system to offer the
foremost amount of healthcare in the best possible manner. However, the introduction of such
changes requires additional financial budgeting which exerts a significant amount of pressure on the
government as a whole.
From another perspective, I believe that the healthcare services are often perceived to be inaccessible
if the providers are unable to acknowledge the barriers such as cultural diversification, economic
variations and physical aspects. I think that the community and the society must be made aware of
the central healthcare services and functions that are made available, for them to be able to lift the

maximum number of benefits (Commonwealth of Australia, 2015). Thus, the human dignity of the
people can be restored with the improved provision of healthcare facilities that help in the reduction
of suffering and the compromise of self-respect that people have to do when they are ill.
The Common Good:
Common good can be referred to benefits that are shared by all the individuals or members of a
community or society collectively. The provision of basic healthcare is definitely an action towards
the common good. Common good is missing as the healthcare services are only made available to a
selected few people of the society. To restore common good, a number of recommendations have
been enlisted in the following few paragraphs. Calder et. al. (2019), share some of the leading
strategies that can pave way for an improved healthcare service for the indigenous and less
privileged population and this can start with the provisions of reduced fees for acquiring
consultation.
This would enable the low-income groups to acquire healthcare services. Higher literacy can be
spread on the best practices that should be followed by people to reduce occurrence of chronic
diseases. Higher consultation time frame would allow individuals to get information. The staunch
biomedical approach to treat indigenous people, may defy their understanding of well-being. I
believe that the practitioners and professionals in these parts can be given improved training to tackle
the communication in an effective and efficient manner. I read that some of the professionals are
known to ignore the significance of kinship systems among the indigenous people. Higher amount of
respect to their society and structure will allow a higher penetration into the system and pave way for
the deliverance of improved medical facilities in these regions (Wyman, Shiovitz-Ezra and Bengel,
2018).
I see Australia ss a vast nation that inhibits varied cultures and groups of people. The lack of
communication and knowledge on the features of other cultures and groups, is the reason that

medical professionals are unable to deliver the promises that the government makes. To reach the
lowest strata of the people, I think it is crucial for the government to account such factors and take
actions in the direction to improvise the healthcare rates in the country today. Although there is vast
amount of literature made available for professionals to learn from; however, many have not been
able to give serious consideration on learning the factors that differentiate the indigenous people
from the others (Ware, 2013).
Conclusion
Dixit and Sambasivan (2018), specify that patient outcomes need to be improvised. Appropriate
resource allocation can assist in improvising the mortality rates to be a considerable extent. It was
also learnt that the errors and inefficiency of the bureaucracy has led to the rise of several other
challenges that the government must deal with. With the use of tools to measure the patient
outcomes, resource distribution, financial performance and quality of services, the Australian
government already has a vast amount of information at hand to assist it in the deliverance of
improved healthcare services across all parts of the society. Evaluation of the reimbursement
methodology adopted until now, giving higher amount of freedom to patients to pick their preferred
physicians and timely evaluation of the system can further enhance the quality of medical services
that are offered to patients irrespective of their cultural or financial status.

References
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2018). Australia’s Health 2018. Australian Institute of
Health and Welfare.
Calder, R., Dunkin, R., Rochford, C. and Nichols, T. (2019). Australian Health Services: Too
Complex to Navigate. A Review of the National Reviews of Australia’s Health Service
Arrangements. Australian Health Policy Collaboration, Policy Issues Paper No. 1 2019,
AHPC.
Commonwealth of Australia. (2015). Efficiency in Health: Productivity Commission Research
Paper. Australian Government Productivity Commission.
Dixit, S. K. and Sambasivan, M. (2018). A Review of the Australian Healthcare System: A Policy
Perspective. Sage Open Medicine. DOI: 10.1177/2050312118769211
Ware, V. (2013). Improving the Accessibility of Health Services in Urban and Regional Settings for
Indigenous People. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare: Australian Government.
Wyman, M. F., Shiovitz-Ezra, S. and Bengel, J. (2018). Ageism in the Health Care System:
Providers, Patients, and Systems. Springer Publications. pp 193-212.