Bachelor of Nursing for Diversity in Australia - myassignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about theBachelor of Nursing for Diversity in Australia. Answer: Topic: Cultural diversity in Australia and health issues specific to indigenous people in Australia Reflection of feelings, thoughts and behavior using the SI template: Wright Mills gave the term social imagination to establish the relation between personal experience and the wider society. It can also be defined as the method of using imaginative thought to interpret and understand sociological issues in society (Giddens et al., 2016). Germov, (2014) argued that sociological imagination is a type of thinking approach in which realities of our lives are connected with larger social realities. Reflection by the use of sociological template shows enables focusing not just on own personal problems, but also understand the issues of the wider society. The sociological imagination template is widely used in real life to understand the social issues experienced by certain sections of society. The sociological imagination template facilitates understanding of wider social issues by focusing on the following interrelated factors: Historical factors Cultural factors Structural factors Critical factors The above mentioned factors enables reflection on personal values and beliefs and what factors shape or influence behavior of a person. The same factors can be analysed from the perspective of the wider society too. This reflective paper particularly focused on applying the sociological imagination template to discuss about cultural diversity in Australia and how Australian health care system meet the needs of the diverse population groups. Reflection is also given on specific health issues present in this group. While working in Australia, I came to about the cultural diversity in the country. Its unique history has contributed to the diversity in people, cultures and behaviors of people residing in the country. Today, it is known as the most culturally and linguistically diverse nation in the world because immigrants, indigenous population and the people from British colonial past comprise the Australian demographic (Face the facts: Cultural Diversity | Australian Human Rights Commission, 2017). Through my experience in the health care field, I got to learn about the immense challenges the staff face due culturally diverse patient group and the preparedness of the system to meet the needs of such people. The Australian Government now realizes the reasons for health inequality between indigenous and non-indigenous people after the publication of the data on health status and life expectancy of indigenous Australians. In the past, cultural competence levels were increased only in case of part icular situations. However, after the enactment of the Close the Gap policy, embedding cultural competence became a priority at both administrative level and operational level. I have seen many new developments are now taking place to develop a culturally competent health service (Cultural competency in the delivery of health services for Indigenous people, 2017). My professional work also gave me the responsibility to interact with the indigenous people. Before doing this task, I was not ware about the history of their migration and the negative experience that has contributed to adverse health issues in them. However, after doing the research work for this reflective assignment, I have more respect for indigenous people because they have experienced negative health outcome due to experience of discrimination and they deserve all the right to be treated equally in society. Reflection on the Topic using SI Template: Historical Factors: After shifting to Australia, I became aware of the vast culturally diversity and rise in immigrants population in the country. I saw a huge cultural shift due to wide difference in the my own cultural background and indigenous people of Australia. I was born and raised in Nepal and I follow Hindu religion. Language barrier was also a challenge for me while working in Australia because only 16% of the population spoke in English and about 61,000 people spoke in indigenous language. Although my first language is Nepali, however I have been speaking English since childhood. So, I had the expectation that knowledge of English language would be enough to work in Australia. However, the diversity in language and culture made me amazed. I saw that the indigenous people choices were highly influence by their culture and past experience. I also have an affinity towards my culture and my society taught me to be respectful and helpful towards other people. The events of discrimination and poor experience faced by indigenous people shocked me because in my own community, we had a strong bonding and I never expected such inequality could exist in society. In our society, people always lend a helping hand in different events such as festivals, marriages or funeral. However, in the Australia culture, I found very different concept regarding interacting with people and bonding with them. The multiculturalism in Australia has been seen mainly because people from diverse culture, ethnic, linguistic and religious group reside in the country. For instance, the indigenous group of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been residing in the country since many thousands years and currently they comprise about 2.8% of the population (Census: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population, 2017).Secondly, immigrants are coming in the country since thee past two centuries (Multicultural Australia, 2017).Indigenous people have resided in Australia since 60, 000 years and history of migration starts from the time before European settlement. At that time, no direct interaction between aboriginals and other people were seen in the country (Our shared history | Sections | Share Our Pride 2017). The White Australian policy also imposed restriction on the migration of the non-European people to preserve British cultural identity. However, after the enactment of Racial Discrimination Act and many other reforms, the Aboriginal people got the right to leave in the country. The Assimilation policy was one of the policy that encouraged people to enhance their cultural competency skills and embrace people from all culture. The health care department also prepared themselves to address the health needs of the indigenous people by extending training to improve the cultural competency of health care staff (Rumbaut, 2015). Cultural Factors: Culture has a vast impact on health and health related choices. For instance, in my birthplace Nepal, I have found people to believe on the supernatural elements for illness and pain and so they mostly try to seek relief from illness by means of prayers and other rituals. Although my cultural beliefs also influence my decisions in life, however I have prioritized my health by focusing on the biomedical aspects of health care. Different cultural beliefs affect perception of health, causes illness, manner of seeking treatment and preference for particular treatment too. I got to know this by investigating about the reasons for great gap in health outcome between indigenous and non-indigenous population. The Australian culture is mixed culture where great difference is seen in the common beliefs and values of people. This has an impact of health outcome and life expectancy of both group. The statisctical data shows that life expectancy of the indigenous population is much lower than the rest of the population for almost all age groups. Circulatory disease was found to be the major cause of mortality in indigenous people (Life expectancy (AIHW), 2017).The excess mortality rate has been linked to poor health behavior of the group such tobacco smoking, alcohol consumption, obesity, poor nutrition and poor utilization of health service. All behavioral risk factors were influence by their cultural beliefs and val ues too and the social gradient. For instance, susceptibility to disease was high due to their lower social standing (Shepherd, Li, Zubrick, 2012). The health behavior of indigenous Australians was also highly influenced by their cultural beliefs and values. Their culture, social network, socioeconomic disadvantage, racism and psychological distress affected their health behavior and choices. Secondly, connection to family and focus on cultural obligation disrupted positive health behavior. In addition, the acceptability of the health service was affected because of the effects of colonization, lack of trust and poor cross-cultural communication (Waterworth et al., 2015). Different concepts about health and treatment of illness further deteriorated their health status and well-being. Structural Factors: Just like indigenous Australians, my cultural beliefs affected the manner in which I interact with the social structure in societies. For instance, while deciding to go to college or while proceeding ahead with professional choices, following family obligations was important for me. These obligations helped me to decide which type of jobs I can take and which I cannot take because of cultural or religious obligations of Hinduism. In Australia, the health care is not designed to tackle people from culturally diverse background. Health care professionals and nurses focus more on biomedical model of care and social element has not been include in health care delivery. This has been the reason for poor utilization of health service by the indigenous group. While investigating about the reasons for poor utilization of health service among indigenous people, I found that apart from cultural obligations, language and communication barrier was a major reason for poor utilization of service. Health professionals failed to comprehend message of indigenous group and they were not aware about the ways to approach indigenous patient. Another gap in health structure was that there is lack of non-discriminatory service to support the complex health needs of the target group. In addition, poor physical availability of the service for indigenous people affected the accessibility of the service in remote setting (Ware, 2017). Critical Factors: My cultural values had never affected my life because in my birthplace, no disparity was seen due to cultural background of people. However, after reviewing the health status of indigenous Australian and the increase in mortality rate in people, major flaws have been found in the Australian health care system. There is lack of culturally acceptable health care service and Australia needs to urgent implement initiatives to integrate culturally sensitive care in current service and improve the factors leading to accessibility of the service. Some of the beneficial strategies many include designing flexible service, indigenous specific service and culturally appropriate health promotion campaigns, employing indigenous staff and training other staffs in cultural competence skills (Truong, Paradies, Priest, 2014). Discussion on Achievement of ACU Graduate Attributes Through Reflection: This reflective exercise on comparing my own cultural background and beliefs and cultural beliefs and health behavior of indigenous population was a useful learning exercise for me. I was not aware that cultural difference could affect health service and health status of a person in a significant way as my country does not have culturally diverse population demographics like Australia. However, after getting the knowledge about the history of multiculturalism in Australia and the reasons for health disparity in indigenous population, I have more respect for this group. I feel that the society has done injustice to them for which they needed to leave their homeland and come to Australia. Secondly, they witnessed racism and heath issues also because of lack of cultural sensitivity in the Australian health care system. Now, I have more respect for this group and I feel that human diversity should be respected and no one should be discriminated on grounds of cultural background and past history. Hence, I have achieved the ACU graduate attribute respect for the diversity of each individual through this reflective exercise. Reference Census: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population. (2017).Abs.gov.au. Retrieved 6 September 2017, from https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/MediaRealesesByCatalogue/02D50FAA9987D6B7CA25814800087E03?OpenDocument Cultural competency in the delivery of health services for Indigenous people. (2017). Retrieved 6 September 2017, from https://www.aihw.gov.au/uploadedFiles/ClosingTheGap/Content/Our_publications/2015/ctgc-ip13.pdf Face the facts: Cultural Diversity | Australian Human Rights Commission. (2017).Humanrights.gov.au. Retrieved 6 September 2017, from https://www.humanrights.gov.au/face-facts-cultural-diversity Germov, J. (2014). Imagining health problems as social issues. In Second opinion: An introduction to health sociology (5th ed.). (Chapter 1). South Melbourne: Oxford University Press Giddens, A., Duneier, M., Appelbaum, R. P., Carr, D. S. (2016).Introduction to sociology. WW Norton. Life expectancy (AIHW). (2017).Aihw.gov.au. Retrieved 6 September 2017, from https://www.aihw.gov.au/indigenous-observatory-life-expectancy/ Multicultural Australia. (2017).Livingsafetogether.gov.au. Retrieved 6 September 2017, from https://www.livingsafetogether.gov.au/informationadvice/Pages/Multicultural-Australia.aspx Our shared history | Sections | Share Our Pride. (2017).Shareourpride.org.au. Retrieved 6 September 2017, from https://www.shareourpride.org.au/sections/our-shared-history/ Rumbaut, R. G. (2015). Assimilation of immigrants.Browser Download This Paper. Shepherd, C. C., Li, J., Zubrick, S. R. (2012). Social gradients in the health of Indigenous Australians.American journal of public health,102(1), 107-117. Truong, M., Paradies, Y., Priest, N. (2014). Interventions to improve cultural competency in healthcare: a systematic review of reviews.BMC health services research,14(1), 99. Ware, V. (2017).Improving the accessibility of health services in urban and regional settings for Indigenous people. Retrieved 6 September 2017, from https://www.aihw.gov.au/uploadedFiles/ClosingTheGap/Content/Publications/2013/ctgc-rs27.pdf Waterworth, P., Pescud, M., Braham, R., Dimmock, J., Rosenberg, M. (2015). Factors influencing the health behaviour of indigenous Australians: Perspectives from support people.PloS one,10(11), e0142323.