Cultural Safety Reflection: Healthcare for Aboriginal Australians

This report presents a student's reflection on the importance of cultural safety within the context of healthcare for Aboriginal Australians. The student discusses their understanding of Aboriginal culture, including its history, traditions, and values, and contrasts it with their own cultural background. The reflection highlights the historical and ongoing challenges faced by Aboriginal people, such as racism, discrimination, and forced assimilation, and how these factors impact their health and access to healthcare. The student emphasizes the significance of cultural competence and the need for healthcare professionals to be aware of their own biases and attitudes. The report concludes with an action plan outlining how the student will implement culturally safe practices in their future nursing career, including respecting cultural differences, using interpreters when necessary, and advocating for more Aboriginal healthcare professionals. The student emphasizes the need for healthcare services to be culturally safe and appropriate to improve access and health outcomes for Aboriginal communities. The report draws on various academic sources to support its arguments and provide a comprehensive understanding of the subject matter.

Running head: REFLECTION ON CULTURAL SAFETY
1
Reflection on Cultural Safety
Student’s name
Institution affiliation

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Description
Cultural competency in healthcare in aboriginal context is an important
aspect while providing care to the aboriginals. In my unit I have come across
the history of the aboriginals, their cultural traditions and their core values.
When I think about the cultural safety the first thing that comes to my mind
is my cultural rights. I stay in Australia and my cultures and my tradition is
quite different from that of the Australian culture. I have inculcated the
Australian culture within myself and have been successful to align myself to
the new culture. The most notable thing about Australian culture is that I was
never deterred from practicing my own culture and tradition. Understanding
the attachment to my own culture was necessary to understand the
importance of tradition and culture in Australian aboriginals.
Feelings
While studying about cultural safety among the Australians, I have
always found that these indigenous people have always been subjected to
racism, discrimination from time immemorial (Brown et al., 2016). Although
the Australian government is trying their best to close the gap regarding the
life expectancy of the aboriginals, give them proper education and
employment, but the question arises, do we actually understand about
cultural safety. As per the health survey reports, Aboriginals are twice as
likely to quit hospital care before their official discharge. Now the question is
that what goes wrong? All the answers lie in the word cultural safety. As per

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Sherwood, (2013), in 1937 the Common wealth government held a national
conference where the Aboriginal were being considered as “not full blood"
and was decided to be assimilated to the wider population (Sherwood, &
Geia, 2014). In the name of cultural assimilation the aboriginal children were
separated from their parents and were taught in schools of westernized
model, where these children were literally tormented and forced to forget
their own traditions and culture. I have felt and have understood from their
learning that the culture in aboriginal is about family networks, ancestors
and the elders. It is about the relationship, ceremony, heritage and
community (Sherwood, & Geia, 2014). Aboriginals have always felt that
aboriginal culture is all about the spiritual association with the land and
waters (Brown et al., 2016). It is the way how the community interacts and
greets each other. Hence I felt that it is the right if the aboriginal children to
remain embedded in their culture. The first people of the Australia; “the
aboriginals” had been ousted from their land (Dudgeon et al., 2015). I have
learned that the idea of kingship and the attachment of the indigenous
people to their land. Breaking this attachment has hampered the life of the
aboriginals greatly. I feel that all these affected the aboriginal health and
hence should be empathized with while providing care to the aboriginal
people (Sherwood, & Geia, 2014).
Evaluation

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Aboriginal people are very sensitive to their culture. For Aboriginal
people keeping culture is a key goal as started in Victorian Aboriginal
Competence Framework (VACF) (Kearns, K .2016).Furthermore I felt much
challenged for forgetting with unit called: 401206 that we covered in
university (Western Sydney University). The unit was specifically talking
about health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and
communities. It was in terms of, their health status, history and policies
affecting their health and cultural perspective of health. The objective of the
unit was to equip the health professional students with knowledge of cultural
safety, especially for Aboriginal people. In the beginning I had a
predetermined notion regarding health. After my learning I have understood
that the main determinants of aboriginal health are their self, identity and
dignity. I have understood that cultural safety can be considered as an
environment where there had been no assault, challenge or denial of their
tradition or culture (Wilson et al., 2015).
Analysis
Cultural safety is very important practice in providing healthcare
services- safe environment for people and frees from assault, denial of
people their identity and their needs. (2014) argued that culturally safe
practice required a nurse to undertake self-reflection and explore his or her
own belief and attitudes and their potential impact on recipient (patient)
under their care. Every level of health system, cultural matters should be the

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main business .This learning was important as the provision of a culturally
safe care is one of the core aspects of nursing. It is the cultural awareness
that encompasses a nurse to foster a care that is patient centered (Wilson et
al., 2015). The colonization history of the aboriginals, the unjustified laws,
and the devaluation of their traditions, forced cultural assimilation are
important determinants of their mental and physical health (Dudgeon et al.,
2015). The aboriginal youths are still affected by their black history and are
subjected to racism in terms of education and employment (Sherwood,
2013). Such deprivation has lead to poor mental and physical health. All
these knowledge has helped me to chalk out the action plan for practicing a
culturally safe nursing practice.
Conclusion
Cultural safety is inevitable, especially when dealing with Aboriginal
people. It needs to be promoted among health care professionals to enable
Aboriginal people to access health care services. To enhance effective health
care services delivery culturally appropriate approaches are the key.
Numerous researchersargued that inappropriate cultural services it the main
stumbling block for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to access
health care services thus, expose their life to risk.
Action plan
I will make sure that my health care services are culturally safe since
unsafe cultural practice is stumbling block to many clients from accessing

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healthcare services. In addition I will critically evaluate my counterparts’
cultural competence before I allow them to represent me in my absence and
advocate for employment of more medics from Aboriginal communities to
attract them to seek medical services (Panaretto et al., 2014). As a nurse I
would try to know their cultures more accurately such that I can
communicate with them easily or else a language interpreter can be used. I
should be mindful about my ways of communication and should avoid any
gestures that appear to be a gesture of disrespect to the elders. While
attending the female patients, I should take care of the gender matching as
she might not find it comfortable to discuss the gynecological facts with a
man. Furthermore, I would take care that I ask for a verbal consent before
touching the patient.
Reference
Brown, A. E., Middleton, P. F., Fereday, J. A., & Pincombe, J. I. (2016). Cultural safety
and midwifery care for Aboriginal women–A phenomenological study. Women
and Birth, 29(2), 196-202. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wombi.2015.10.013

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Dudgeon, P., & Walker, R. (2015). Decolonising Australian psychology: Discourses,
strategies, and practice. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 3(1), 276-
297. https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.v3i1.126
Dudgeon, W., Wright, M., Paradies, Y., Garvey, D., & Walker, I. (2014). Aboriginal
social, cultural and historical contexts. In Working together Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander mental health and wellbeing principles and
practice. (pp. 3-24). Commonwealth Department of Health.
Panaretto, K. S., Wenitong, M., Button, S., & Ring, I. T. (2014). Aboriginal community
controlled health services: leading the way in primary care. The Medical
Journal of Australia, 200(11), 649-652. doi: 10.5694/mja13.00005
Sherwood, J. (2013). Colonisation–It’s bad for your health: The context of Aboriginal
health. Contemporary Nurse, 46(1), 28-40.
https://doi.org/10.5172/conu.2013.46.1.28
Sherwood, J., & Geia, L. K. (2014). Historical and current 1 perspectives on the
health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Yatdjuligin, 7.
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