Week 5: Understanding Health and Culture Flashcards
What is cultural sensitivity?
Self-reflection: what did I do and how could I have done it better? How will I do it better next time? What is important to me? So why would someone be refusing treatment? (Stolen Generations, away from Country and family)
Different to everyone, involves some self-care
Different cultures = different approaches: same treatment but different communication/approach
Goes both ways
How do you show respect for the community you are caring for?
Don’t move the furniture: don’t change the system which worked well before you arrived, no matter what it seems like on first impression. Learn how things work in the community, don’t pressure or rush to make changes. Don’t fight the system, be tactful and educate
Ask questions: find out about the culture, who has information and what is important to the community
Get involved: attend events and become a part of the community
Be open to making mistakes, because small towns talk: open to patients and staff, don’t blame others for your mistakes, take the necessary steps to rectify (apologise, inform appropriate staff)
How do you apply appropriate terminology in practice?
Appropriate terminology is determined by the person receiving the communication
Professionalism: don’t need to talk to patients differently just because they are from a different culture, and it is possible to be professional while still talking in a way which is comfortable for the patient
Run difficult conversations past a colleague
Use resources to help
Advocate for what the patient needs
During your shift, a patient is wheeled into the ED shouting and becoming aggressive. What do you do?
Race is irrelevant: maintain professionalism no matter who it is
De-escalation techniques
Move others away
Consider police
Contact Aboriginal Liaison Officer
Reflect on how it could have been done better
What is the role of the Aboriginal Liaison Officer?
To liaise between non-Indigenous and Indigenous members of the community
To provide resources for staff to use to proceed in a more culturally safe manner
Reference for people when they are discharged from hospital
Why do Indigenous Australians continue to suffer a greater burden of ill health than the rest of the population?
Causal agents of ill health linked to social environment, and not particularly individual choice
Colonisation –> marginalisation, social, political and economic disadvantage –> burden of illness
Colonisation is a determinant of health, ongoing
Terra nullius: construction of Indigenous Australians as problematic and inferior
Forcibly taking land: inability to maintain societal, legal and religious obligations, loss of land critical to health and wellbeing, malnutrition, loss of community
Frontier Wars: demoralising, performed in the name of research –> continued distrust
Protectionism: no autonomy, mission/reserves –> welfare dependence, lock hospitals –> distrust of healthcare
Stolen Generations: institutionalisation, trans-generational injury
Self-determination policies: top down approach focused on organisations and not communities
Inter generational trauma and loss –> unresolved hopelessness and grief
Consequences of history and policy on healthcare ignored or omitted in healthcare which uses positivism method of knowledge production
Health professionals must appreciate divergent views of health to work respectfully, actively and effectively
Informed and active decolonising gaze can shift colonial context
How can a decolonising gaze be applied to Indigenous Australian health?
Research is not impartial
All health professionals bring their own worldviews and perspectives as a lens to examine and explore the world
Australia is influenced by positivist research which is formed by Western philosophy and reasoning –> embedded in policy, institutions, social structure, stereotyping
Lived narratives provide important evidence for present circumstances
What is ‘colonisation’?
The forcible removal of people from the land based on worldviews of Western superiority, and the entrenched social disadvantage which continues to impact on the health and wellbeing of those affected inter generationally
What are the impacts of colonisation upon health and wellbeing?
Colonisation is a social determinant of health
Ongoing negative impacts
Higher burden of disease in Indigenous Australian communities
High rates of lifestyle diseases: cardiovascular, diabetes, cancer
Increase rates of mental health issues, suicide, substance abuse
What is one example of Decolonising Nursing?
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