HFB1001

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Death by
Racism
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Cultural Knowledge

Cultural safety is a concept that is essential to providing effective healthcare, however

is determined not by the health professional, but instead the health consumer

Lavelle highlights the deficits in culturally safe care within the healthcare system,
pointing out the fact that many professionals within the industry hold outdated ideas on
race as well as racial stereotypes

Colleen Lavelle also provides a solution to these issues from an Indigenous person’s
perspective
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Respect
◤
Communication
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Safety & Quality

- Safety and Quality in-regards to the cultural capability model means to apply evidence and strengths
based best practice approaches in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander healthcare.

- The article hones-in on the deficit discourse approach our healthcare system uses to attend to Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander healthcare

- Strengths based approaches for our healthcare system:

- No doctor or nurse should be able to work with Aboriginal people unless they have had cultural awareness
training, it should be a requirement that all medical professionals do a cultural awareness course with a refresher
course after every year.
- The government investing in translators for patients who do not speak English as their first language.
- The government should implement a structure with an incentive such as a general practice receiving money for
each Indigenous patient they see.

- Coleen states that although Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have some different needs, their
health should not be compromised due to the bigotry demonstrated by healthcare workers every day.
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Reflection
- Reflection is a requirement to examine and reflect on how one’s own culture and
dominant cultural paradigms, influence perceptions of, and interactions with Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander People (Commonwealth of Australia, 2014).

- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients are being overlooked due to outdated
racial stereotypes.

- Institutional racism is evident as the racism involves the incorporation of racist ideals in
policies and practices within an organisation (Biles & Biles (2020) .

- Health care workers are not necessarily aware that they have unconscious biases that are
impacting the quality of care they are delivering.

- It is crucial to recognise the influence of our own cultural identity and the culture of the
Australian healthcare system on perceptions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
peoples (Commonwealth of Australia, 2014)

- It
is essential that all healthcare workers are educated on cultural safety and have
regular reminders, as this will ensure that the most culturally safe care is delivered.
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Advocacy
- Advocacy requires that the whole health system is responsible for improving Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander health, advocate for equitable outcomes and social justice, and actively
contribute to social change (Commonwealth of Australia, 2014).

- “Collected stories” is evidence that a lack of advocacy occurs in many healthcare environments
and is crucial in aiding equitable healthcare to all patients

- Promote equitable health services and affirm the principles of the United Nations Declaration on
the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Commonwealth of Australia, 2014). These rights establish a
universal framework of minimum standards for survival, dignity and wellbeing of Indigenous
peoples of the world and elaborates on existing human rights standard and fundamental freedoms
as they apply to specific situations of Indigenous people (United Nations, 2007)

- Demonstrate leadership by advocating for equitable health outcomes and culturally safe
services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients and resilience to manage resistance to
change from others (Commonwealth of Australia, 2014).

- Gain more knowledge of their culture, so if inequitable delivery is witnessed, they are able to
educate and correct their peers.
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References

Gentile, V., Carter, A., & Jobson, L. (2022). Journal of the Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet - Edith Cowan
University. Examing the Associations Between Experiences of Percieved Racism and Drug and Alcohol Use in
Aboriginal Australians. Retrieved March 12, 2023, from https://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1004&context=aihjournal

Amery, R. (2017, July 3). Recognising the communication gap in Indigenous Health Care. The Medical Journal of
Australia. Retrieved March 12, 2023, from https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2017/207/1/recognising-communication-
gap-indigenous-health-care

Amery, R. (2017, July 3). Recognising the communication gap in Indigenous Health Care. The Medical Journal of
Australia. Retrieved March 12, 2023, from https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2017/207/1/recognising-communication-
gap-indigenous-health-care

Brady, M. (2002). Historical and cultural roots of tobacco use among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Health Inequalities, 26(2), 120–124. Retrieved March 12, 2023, from
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1467-842X.2002.tb00903.x.
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References

Australian Human Rights Commission & National Congress of Australia's First Peoples. (2021). The Community
Guide to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
https://humanrights.gov.au/sites/default/files/declaration_abridged_community_guide.pdf

Biles, Brett, and Jessica Biles. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples' Health & Wellbeing eBook, Oxford
University Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central,
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/vu/detail.action?docID=5964833.

Commonwealth of Australia Department of Health. (2014). The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health
Curriculum Framework.
https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2020/12/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-health-curriculu
m-framework.pdf

Commonwealth of Australia Department of Health. (2014). The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health
Curriculum Framework.
https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2020/12/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-health-curriculu
m-framework.pdf

Hobbs J. White Privilege in Health Care: Following Recognition With Action. Ann Fam Med. 2018 May;16(3):197-
198. doi: 10.1370/afm.2243. PMID: 29760020; PMCID: PMC5951245.
(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5951245/)