Cultural Capability in Healthcare: A Critical Discussion on Principles

This essay critically discusses the core principles of cultural capability for healthcare professionals, emphasizing its importance in delivering appropriate healthcare services to clients from diverse cultural backgrounds. It highlights the negative impacts of ethnocentric health services, particularly on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations, whose health status is significantly poorer due to historical factors like colonization and social devaluation. The essay explores the key components of cultural capability, including cultural awareness, knowledge, skills, and encounters, and references the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies' framework for culturally competent care. This framework includes culturally informed methods such as collaborating with traditional healers, gender matching in healthcare appointments, incorporating traditional healing practices, and adopting culturally effective policies and procedures to improve healthcare access and quality for Aboriginal people. The essay concludes by underscoring the necessity of cultural competency as a strategy for reducing inequalities in healthcare and enhancing the responsiveness of health services to diverse cultural groups.

Running head: CULTURAL CAPABILITY
CULTURAL CAPABILITY
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author’s note

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Core principles of cultural capability for health care professional
Cultural capability and cultural competence in the health care sector enables the health
care professionals to deliver appropriate services to clients belonging to diverse cultural
background. According to Coffin et al., (2007), the researchers have long reported the negative
impacts of the ethnocentric health services provided to the aboriginal population. Cultural
capability requires a combination of cultural awareness, cultural skills, cultural knowledge, and
cultural encounters. Cultural capability is essential in the global context as people have different
ethnicities and traditions, and their care depends on the acceptability of these cultures. Cultural
competency is a key strategy for enhancing the capability of the health service system and
organization for providing more responsive health care to diverse cultural groups.
While discussing about different cultures, ethnicities and cultural competence it is
necessary to refer to the Aboriginals and the Torres Trait Islander’s population. As per the
statistical data the health status of the first people of Australia, the aboriginal are poor, both in
context of physical health and mental health. According to Bainbridge et al., (2015) cultural
competency has been found to be the key strategy for reducing the inequalities in the access to
the health care and the quality effectiveness of the care received. Ryde, (2009), have referred to
the fact that the history of land colonization, the separation of the aboriginal children from their
parents and social devaluation have attributed to the degrading health status of the people. It has
also been found that the aboriginal s were likely to face delayed referrals and hence rely less on
the westernized model of health care.

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The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies have initiated a
cultural capability frame work in order to provide a culturally competent care to the aboriginal
patients .Some of the core principles are- Taking culturally informed methods, such as
collaborating with the traditional healers while caring for the palliative care patients, gender
matching while appointing the nurses and the midwives, Incorporating the traditional healing
methods such as bush medicines, engaging effectively with the Aboriginal people on relevant
issues, adopting the policies and the procedures to that are culturally effective for the aboriginal
people (Taylor & Guerin, 2010).

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References
Bainbridge, R., McCalman, J., Clifford, A., & Tsey, K. (2015). Cultural competency in the
delivery of health services for Indigenous people.
Coffin, J. (2007). Rising to the challenge in Aboriginal health by creating cultural security.
Aboriginal and Islander Health Worker Journal, 31(3), 22
Ryde, J. (2009). Being white in the helping professions: Developing effective intercultural
awareness. Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Taylor, K., & Guerin, P. (2010). Health care and Indigenous Australians: cultural safety in
practice. Macmillan Education AU.