Cultural Safety

Cultural Safety Name Course number Instructor’s name Date LO1: White governance has largely dominated the Australian health care system and has also been marred with culturally insensitivity. To address the inadequacies the Australian National Health Research council developed a guiding framework towards ensuring cultural competency for the Australian health sector. It aimed at informing health approaches on the importance of streamlining culture in health care delivery in different levels of health care delivery. This is because Australia is a multicultural set up and health care must be suitable to the prevailing cultural conditions. LO2: There is a mixture of historical, socioeconomic issues contributing to poor health among the indigenous population in Australia. For instances, Aboriginal people receive inadequate nursing care. A strategy to address health care needs of indigenous people is necessary owing to their high morbidity and mortality rates as compared to other segments of the population in Australia. They remain at disadvantaged socioeconomic position and the political and historical influences owing to colonization. Cultural factors in nursing influence the relationship between patients and nurses. There is a need to focus beyond the basic acknowledgement of cultural differences to incorporating a sense of focusing on the patient’s cultural experiences to protect and promote their identity. LO4 Principles of cultural safety demands that health care practitioners offer services that are culturally sensitive. They uphold the identity of the patients in a socially supportive way that enhances personal or cultural worth of the patients. Health practitioners require understanding the cultural underpinnings of indigenous groups in the population to promote and protect their cultural beliefs and uphold their identity and recognition as worthy members of the society. Part 1 B Briefly describe the relationship between racism and white privilege. Then discuss how cultural safety can overcome some of these issues. Scientific racism glorifies people of white skin colour as culturally superior to those with different colours. Whites are considered intellectually, morally, physically and socially superior owing to their biological make up (Eckermann, Dowd, Chong, Nixon, Gray, & Johnson, 2010). The genesis of racism in Australia can be traced to the colonial era where the colonizers ranked European immigrants, convicts and non-whites particularly the poor from the aboriginal descent very low in the hierarchy of humanity (Eckermann, Dowd, Chong, Nixon, Gray, & Johnson, 2010). The concept of whiteness in health makes reference to skin colour as well as the racial or western perspectives that suppress indigenous roles in the social structure. The western biomedical model is considered superior indicating racism existence of racism at the institutional level. There requires an overhaul in the health care policies to review the prevailing standardised care that fails to consider the views of the marginalised indegenous Australian people (Durey & Thompson, 2012). Indigenous people have more negative health outcomes than others in other developed countries. They are 6 times more likely to leave the hospital without seeking formal medical approval and twice more likely to die while in hospital. They are also unlikely to seek health care particularly for mental health. The whites or the Anglo-Australians transfer intolerant perceptions into health care through policies that discriminate against the indigenous. The policies preclude the indigenous populations from accessing treatment and care options that are on normal occasions offered to non-indigenous groups. Such policies advocate for services that remain largely inaccessible to indigenous groups. Additionally, scarce resources are dedicated to streamlining health care to the unique needs of the indigenous groups (Durey & Thompson, 2012). Cultural safety procedures address the racially unbalanced system in health care provision. The procedures ought to take into account the main areas that contribute to discriminatory treatment of indigenous Australians in the mainstream health care system. The government and health care providers must focus on the important areas that include finance, coverage and multifaceted treatment (Durey & Thompson, 2012). Cultural safety principles recommend involving indigenous people in the development and implementation of health policies that address mainstream health care areas such as finance, coverage and advanced care or treatment (NACCHO, 2011). For instance, the aboriginal community have been involved through the aboriginal community controlled health services (ACCHS) in primary care (Durey & Thompson, 2012). Representatives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders that are incorporated into bodies to lobby for equal access to health care, affordability, availability, and proper quality of health care services such as National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health must ensure that the needs are addresses in all parts of the health care system (NACCHO, 2011). Health care providers that are in direct contact and all service deliverers with the indigenous population also require training to attain cultural competence. The training material must incorporate the history of the marginalised community, set role models to promote cultural safety within the health care institutions, promote regular dialogue imitated by cultural safety educators in the various institutions and require institutions to develop customized cultural safety policies at institutional levels in order to firmly consolidate the concept in daily service delivery (Brascoupe & Waters, 2009). Part 2 B Develop, name and describe 4 personal learning goals relating to cultural safety that you aim to achieve before graduating with your degree. The learning goals as they relate to cultural safety require adopting a holistic approach to care. This is where nurses recognized offer culturally competent care that takes interpersonal dynamics into consideration. Nurses take time to understand patient’s feelings and inquire about patient’s viewpoints. They understand their personal cultural prejudices in order to provide care in a way that promotes the worth of the indigenous people’s cultural identity because they are part of the society. One of the cultural safety goals that I require to achieve before graduating is to focus on the patient’s experience in providing care. To adequately focus on the patient, it is important to first recognize the cultural differences and adopt an approach that does not impinge on the indigenous people’s culture. Nurses ...