Indigenous Health Care System

This report identifies the challenges faced by the modern health professionals in understanding the complexities of providing culturally competent Aboriginal health, physiotherapy and rehabilitation care within the Australian primary health care system. Non-Indigenous health care professionals cannot truly understand the true complexity of the past impacts of colonialism, the political process and the community’s prejudice effects on the Indigenous health status. This report intends to inspire health care professionals to understand the development of cultural competency standards by health industry bodies and actively engage in cross-cultural interactions to develop a higher level of skills in their community and practice. This report provides …show more content…
Unfortunately the process of providing adequate and culturally appropriate health care has only just begun and current Indigenous health statistics are startling, the difference in life expectancy between Aboriginal people and the general population is estimated to be 7–9 years. The New South Wales key health statistics, (2012) highlights the current Aboriginal health …show more content…
Due to historic political control and cultural restrictions on the Indigenous Australian’s, in the past the majority of Indigenous Australians live in low socio-economic conditions and have had little access or ability to gain adequate levels of health and wellbeing services and in some cases due to the remote locations or physiological trauma of past actions have no access to the health care system. A research paper produced by the Australian Government (2012), explain that the “higher rates of diseases, lower life expectancy and early death are experienced by Aboriginal people for many reasons, including: a history of dispossession, poor community and social capital, low socioeconomic status, impaired access to and quality of health and other services, health-related behaviors and environmental factors” (Vos et al., 2007). Unfortunately most health conditions and death are preventable or respond well to treatment in hospital or primary health care (Australian Government 2008). The National Aboriginal Health Strategy Working Party (1989) stated that Aboriginal people need to be “able to determine all aspects of life, including control over the physical environment, of dignity, of community self-esteem and of justice. It is not merely the provision of doctors, hospitals, medicines, or the absence of disease and incapacity” (NAHSP, 1989). There