Understanding Indigenous Australian Culture: A Nursing Perspective

This essay critically examines the value of nurses completing a course in introduction to Indigenous Australian culture. It emphasizes the importance of understanding the history and culture of Indigenous Australians, including the Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal communities, to deliver effective healthcare. The essay discusses how nurses can gain a holistic understanding of health, incorporating physical, mental, cultural, and spiritual well-being, and how understanding historical injustices, such as colonization and the stolen generation, can inform appropriate healthcare strategies. It highlights the importance of cultural competence, recognizing the impact of kinship, family, and community in healthcare, and fostering trust to improve patient outcomes. The essay concludes that a course in Indigenous Australian culture enhances nurses' ability to address cultural differences, promote diversity, and provide culturally sensitive care, ultimately improving the health and well-being of Indigenous communities.

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Importance of learning Indigenous Australian for nurses
History and culture defines an individual or community way of thinking, communication and
what of value and important in their life. History shape the present time and determine how
people think about their future. Culture, being a part of human lives, influences values, views,
hopes, loyalties, fears and worries (Ford, 2012). The indigenous Australian comprise of Torres
Strait Islander and Aboriginal. The Indigenous Australians have their history dating back 75000
years. They are amongst the world oldest cultures and demand consideration and respect (Mitrou
et al., 2014). The indigenous Australian culture has been adversely affected when Australia was
colonized by Great Britain and its impact is felt to date. The historical injustices have led to the
most problems experienced among the Aboriginals and Torres Islanders communities and
continually shape their lives. Understanding culture and history enables a professional to build
relationships with individuals and community that help to attain effective delivery of services.
Therefore, it important for professional working closely with indigenous communities to
understand their past and culture in order to successfully deliver on their workplace. The
following essay critically discusses the importance and value of nurse professionals completing a
course in introduction to indigenous Australia. This will involve exploring the usefulness of
learning about the histories and culture of Indigenous Australians and the impact of the past to
future generation. The essay will also discuss the issues of cultural differences and diversity.
Nursing as a profession in health care sector plays an important role on caring for families,
individuals, and communities so that they can attain, recover or maintain optimal health. Nurses
are involved promotion, protection, and optimization of health, facilitation of healing, prevention

of injury and illness, alleviation of suffering and advocacy of care to group, communities,
families, individuals, or special population (Shepherd, Li, Mitrou, & Zubrick, 2012). Nurses aim
to improve quality of life through optimal health care. Nurses work closely with Indigenous
Australians and it necessary for them to understand their history and culture to deliver optimal.
First, nurses completing the unit on introduction to indigenous Australia will be able to
understand health in Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal context. Health is viewed in a more
holistic content as compared to non-indigenous Australians. Health encompasses physical and
mental health, culture and spiritual health. In addition, land is central to indigenous Australians’
wellbeing (Downing, Kowal, & Paradies, 2011). This is different from the non indigenous
Australian where health is viewed as mental and physical wellness with land playing not part of
wellbeing. The nurses have to understand that in order to achieve optimal health among
indigenous Australians they have to enhance harmony of interrelations of physical and mental
health, culture and spiritual health. Otherwise, the individual unwell health will persist.
Secondly, it important for nurses to understand the indigenous Australian history contest and its
impact. Nurses working with Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islander need to have sound
understanding of Australian history since colonization. The Australian history has profound
impact that has influence on the contemporary life. The indigenous Australia history from pre-
colonization, colonization, white assimilation to stolen generation has created disruption that
require understanding to solve the health problem of Aboriginals and Torres Islander(Mitrou et
al., 2014). The history of indigenous Australians is a social determinant of health to their
contemporary life. The indigenous people were subjection to colonization led to increased
substance abuse and mental health unwell being. Colonization led to loss of culture and
traditional ways, people and communities (Paradies, 2016). The people got disconnected to

traditional law, food, language, and cultural practices. The indigenous were therefore unable to
resist new diseases that caused significant deaths and ongoing health problems. Nurses will
therefore be able to understand the beginning of the health problem that the Aboriginal and
Torres Islanders face in Australia. The nurses will also be able to understand the reason behind
the indigenous Australians’’ behavior. Secondly, nurses are able to understand the impact of
colonization to mental health. The nurses are able to understand histories of colonization,
removal of children and assimilation policies are the causes of traumatic distress, physical ill-
health, chronic anxiety, depression and substance abuse in the indigenous lives today (Gracey, &
King, 2009).. The nurses then are able to understand the impact of history that has continually
affected the lives of indigenous Australians. This will help nurses formulate appropriate health
care promotion strategies that aim to solve root cause of the problem and not just the symptoms.
Understanding the root cause will also enable nurses to advocate for health policies holistically
solve the history injustice causing unwell being among indigenous Australians.
The nurses will also be able to appreciate the indigenous people culture, traditions, and beliefs.
Nurses will get expose to indigenous people traditions, culture, and beliefs. Culture, traditions,
and beliefs shapes one’s thinking, attitude, and perception that influence the human behavior.
The course explores important concepts such as living under the Act, self determination, arts,
and indigenous identity. These concepts are important to nursing professionals in learning how to
appreciate the indigenous people way of living. The impact of historical injustice, assimilation,
and children separation has a profound impact on the future generations of indigenous people on
how they integrate with the non indigenous Australians (Parker et al., 2012). Appreciation of the
indigenous people will enable the nurses to widen the scope of health care provision.

The completion of studying indigenous history will also enable the nurses recognize the
European invasion was as the direct outcome of the contemporary experienced unwell being
among indigenous Australia. The Europeans caused cultural disruption that led to cultural unwell
being. This cause the indigenous people to fear to be treated by white nurses (Garnett et al.,
2009). It also causes mistrust between the indigenous people and the white professionals.
Recognizing this fact will enable the nurses to start a reconciliation and building of trust while
working with indigenous people. Failure to reconcile and build trust can lead to patients from
Aboriginals and Torres Islanders refusing to attend to medical attention fearing that they will die
in the hands of white nurse or doctors (Whelan & Wright, 2013). The nurses will also be able to
recognize the role of kinship, family, and community in administering health care. Recognition
will help the nurses incorporate a wide scope and involve the family and builds trust in order to
undertake their activities effectively and deliver quality health care to indigenous communities.
Lastly, completing the course will enable nurses to attain culture competence skills. The nurses
will be able to interact effectively with indigenous people. Nurses will understand, appreciate,
and recognize indigenous people traditions, beliefs, and culture (Mitrou et al., 2014). The nurses
will be able to understand the expected behaviors from indigenous people. The nurses will not
look down or stop them proceeding to practice their traditions, or beliefs. The nurses will
encourage them to participate and align the practices to attain harmony that will lead to healthy
life of the patient. Appreciating the indigenous culture will enable the nurses to incorporate the
culture in their treatment. For instance, the nurses can use the indigenous community arts in
healthy centers or community ambulances to create a sense of belonging to the community.
Appreciation will therefore create an enabling environment where the indigenous people will feel
appreciated and will visit for health checkups or medical attention. Cultural competence also

enable the nurses recognize the cultural practices, traditions and beliefs. This will build
successful relationship that will be used to provide quality health care. Culture compete is
therefore important for nurses to effectively deliver quality health care to indigenous people that
meet their cultural, social and linguistic need.
From the discussion of the essay, the completion of introduction to indigenous Australia is an
important study to nurses who will work with indigenous communities. The course exposes
nurses to history of indigenous people before colonization, during colonization, assimilation, and
stolen generation. The course is important to nursing profession because of nature of their work
that require trust, relationships and understanding. Nursing professionals are able to appreciate,
understand, recognize, and acquire cultural competence from the course that are useful in
delivering effective health care to indigenous people. Appreciating, understanding and
recognizing indigenous people culture is importance to settling cultural differences and
encouraging diversity among the indigenous and non indigenous Australians. Therefore, the
essay concludes that introduction to indigenous Australia is an important course that extends
understanding, appreciation, recognition and enhances cultural competence skills that
professionals can use when working with indigenous communities in Australia.

References
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