Indigenous and Cross-Cultural Health Care - Assignment Example

Name : xxxxxxxxxxx Institution : xxxxxxxxxxx Tutor : xxxxxxxxxxx Title : Indigenous and cross cultural health care Course : xxxxxxxxxxx @2009 Indigenous and cross cultural health care Qn. 1 Components of verbal communication The basis of communication verbally is interacting between people. Verbally, people can communicate face to face. The main components of verbal communication involve sound, words, speaking and language. Vocal cords produce sounds and these sounds in turn form the words. Words express emotions or copy natural sounds. However sound alone lack meaning. People put meaning into words hence language development and language consequently leads to speaking. Different cultures have different languages, the reason why people from different cultures experience difficulties in understanding each other. Still, same words may have different meaning between different cultures hence interpretation of such word is necessary (Julian & Easthope 1999). Qn. 2 Non verbal communication as a barrier to effective communication Non verbal communication is not known to everyone hence few people understand this type of communication. Also during communication someone could create a different impression form the one someone intended to deliver. for example if someone smiles, there are people who will perceive one as having ulterior motives while one just intended to being friendly. Again different non verbal communication has different meaning in different cultures hence different interpretations. For example in US placing legs on table means relaxation while in some places it is a sign of disrespect. It also requires the communicating parties involved to be overly keen (Sumner 2004). Qn. 3 Difference between professional communication and everyday communication Professional communication refers to written, oral, and visual communication in a workplace setting. In professional communication it requires one to have wide range of communication skills; one should make use of strategies, theories and technologies to communicate more effectively in business world. Everyday communication refers to informal communication that normally exists between people with no proficient requirements. It does not require any professional skills but just language skills necessary to interact in social settings, for example, talking to a friend through the phone. Everyday communication is about situation bound, face to face communication, such as the first language a toddler learns, which is used in daily social interactions (Julian & Easthope 1999). Qn. 4 Ethnocentrism Ethnocentrism is the assumption that ones background either in terms of race or ethnic is better when compared to other cultures. One believes that his or her own culture and all its characteristics are finer in relation to other culture groups. A person who is ethnocentric judges other cultural groups when compared to his or her own more so when it comes to language, behavior, traditions and religion. The ethnic divisions are there to define ones ethnicity’s distinctive cultural distinctiveness. An example in clinical set up is whereby a physician may provide culturally insensitive care to the other culture’s patients (Reynolds 1987). Qn. 5 External locus of control Such a patient is likely believe that powerful others, destiny or chance primarily determines his or her condition. Therefore the patient will have a negative attitude toward the sickness and will not put efforts to try and learn more about the health. The patient believes that the efforts towards improving the health will not be successful. The patient will also do nothing in trying to take some cautious measures concerning the health since he or she believes that he or she can’t play any role or help in improving the situation. Qn. 6 Folk sector health practices One of these practices is the use of complementary and alternative medicine. This involves the use of herbal medicine and is a practice that is thriving very fast in Australian health care system. The requirements entail having detailed information about the herbal substances to be submitted to the relevant authorities. The alternative medicine should also undergo efficacy tests and also the safety of the medicines should be tested since some of them could turn out to be toxic. Still, interactions with the convectional medicines should be tested as well as the probable side effects that come with using alternative medicine (Tregenza & Abbott 1995). Qn. 7 Kinship Among Australian Aboriginal, kinship refers to a structure of law governing social interaction. This law mostly governs the marriages in traditional aboriginal culture. Kinship is an essential component of the culture of each aboriginal grouping within Australia. The kinship system divides the society into several groups, whereby each group is given a name used to referring to the individual constituents of that group. The kinship system is classificatory; this means that even the individuals who do not have blood relations are allocated to a kinship system. Kinship systems are widespread hence every society member is allocated a position within the system (Salter 2002). Qn. 8 Non compliant patient Labeling a patient as non compliant may affect her personal choice since a non compliant patient could be forced to accept a treatment that she or he feels is not appropriate to him or her. Such health officer makes a personal choice on behalf of the patient. Again it is not fair in terms of medical professions versus patients since the doctor could be biased and could not be understanding everyone’s cultural believes. Still, a certain patient who could be allergic to some drugs could be labeled as non compliant and forced to take such drugs to become compliant and such thing could worsen the situation and bring more complications (Schwartz 1974). Qn. 9 Cultural assessment Since the nurses and other health care providers and the patients will be able to able to understand each other well, this will improve the patients attitude towards the hospital because there will be less culture problems which could result due to cultural differences. The patient will also be more comfortable with the hospitalization because there will be comfort in terms of personal space. More so, since the patients will be availed the nutrition and care that best suits him or her and the one that the patient is well conversant with it will get better the attitude towards hospitalization (Giger 1991). Qn. 10 Role of transcultural liaison officer A transcultural liaison officer helps with language difficulties incase a health care set is treating a mixture of patients with diverse ethnic backgrounds. He or she helps the patients in understanding all medical procedures, superseding with families who could be making use of other cultural treatments that are not any helpful or any of a selection of issues with which patients may require help, for example providing such people with explanations as to why such cultural remedies are not worthy while and importance of utilizing the given health care (Gentile 1996). Part two Factors affecting communication with aboriginal patients There are several factors that affect communication within health systems in Aboriginal patients. Some of them include cross cultural differences between the patients and health cares. It brings a notion whereby one group feels superior to the other which inhibits them not to marry any useful health practice that they should be having. On the same note, there is also misunderstanding on why certain practices are in place since they have a cultural background thereby they cannot be explained upon superficially. This controversy in cultures between patients and health care givers brings about compromised health services. There is also cultural barrier among the health practitioners which causes misunderstanding hence disunity that boils down to the patients in terms of poor health services delivery (Devitt 1998). On the other hand there is the language barrier. It brings about communication breakdown between health workers and the Aboriginal patients. Cases are there whereby a patient ends up with wrong diagnosis since the doctor or nurse did not understand or interpret well information conveyed by the patient due to differences in dialect. Still, the patient may be given correct clinical diagnosis as well as treatment but may end up not implementing instructions given by the health giver due to ignorance or communication barrier. Again the health care givers may be unwilling to go an extra mile to learn the local dialect for effective communication. This acts as a block in the medical field. While all this takes place, the government has largely contributed to the failure and has as take in it since majority of rural Aborigines neither speaks nor understands English. The government should thoroughly campaign for this and meanwhile train adequate interpreters (Butler 2004). In term of socio-economic factors, inadequate social amenities come into play. Some health practitioners are reluctant to move into the rural setups as a result of the above named setback like poor infrastructure. Similarly, the government should also strive to ensure that both non-Aboriginals and Aboriginals are thoroughly motivated. Of noting is that there is shortage of medical personnel which has led to inadequate provision of medical services among this his group. There are also ethnic prejudices that appear in the scene like belief in sorcery and taboos. All this should be dismythfied using culturally acceptable language that shows respect for ones culture. Likewise, family linkages, ones age and gender have a great influence. This calls for the health staff to understand which health or medical information to discuss with whom so as to avoid socio-cultural conflicts (Andrews 1989). The political will power is also not left out as one of the constraints of effective and efficient health services delivery. There is inequitable distribution of resources among the non Aboriginals and Aboriginals like health facilities and health staff. This is due to government leaders’ political interests which renders some communities disadvantaged. The problem is further escalated by personal interests expressed by health staff like preference of urban areas over remote ones, cultural communication and cultural barriers among others. There is still mismatch in incorporating the laid down strategies in the policy papers whereby priority is given to ideas that are of influential persons which may not be necessarily of help. Consequently, power control slows down fair distribution of health resources as well as partnership between non Aboriginals and Aboriginals staff. Still, majority of the policy makers are also not from the communities at stake. This makes some of the policies made to be inappropriate since their origin is not from the bearers. Nevertheless, inadequate follow up has been carried out to check on the effectiveness of the policies upon implementation (Butler 2004). Effects of government policies on health of Australia’s indigenous people Foremost, the government policy that proposes availability of sufficient health practitioners ensures that these people always get vaccine to any disease outbreak. A good example is the recent outbreak of swine flu whereby enough practice nurses were availed allover the country to ensure everyone gets access to these services. Government worked together with medical branches to support an efficient way of doing away with disease outbreaks allover the country. Government policies that demand equal access to health services has also helped improve the health of indigenous people in Australia. This is because these people are able to get medical services any time they are unwell without any bias (Territory Health Services 1996). Again, government policy on subsidizing medical bills assists so many indigenous Australians to be able to access medical services. This is because there are poor indigenous Australians who would otherwise not be able to get medical treatments. This therefore gives them a chance to get quality medical services. This in turn has improved the health of indigenous Australian since treatments are given to them and they regularly get vaccines against disease outbreaks. Again the government working together with community based groups located at indigenous places and this hence helps in decreasing the danger of delay and consequent frustration within the broader indigenous community. In 2004, the Australian government came up with a new approach of providing health services to indigenous communities. A component of the approach involved starting shared responsibility agreements. Here, the government came up with a policy whereby the government and the indigenous Australians have the rights and duties and therefore both should share the responsibility of acquiring proper medical services. This definitely improves the health of indigenous Australians. Precisely, shared responsibility means that those with sufficient resources should share such resources with the people who have insufficient the resources. In turn, those who get this generosity have a responsibility of sharing these resources with others. With this policy bringing equality among all, it is likely that this goes along way in enabling everyone to afford medical care and consequently improved the health among the indigenous Australians. The government giving freedom of choice to everyone irrespective of the origin leads to development of a health community. This is because policies that are fair to everyone respect every community’s autonomy. There is always strong connection between autonomy and health when it comes to determining the health of people. A community having the autonomy as well as self respect is more apt to be a health community. Such community is in a position to build trust, reciprocity and consequently get better health standards in the community. Therefore, such policy among indigenous Australians helps in improving the community’s health status at large (Julian & Easthope 1999). The government policies concerning human rights make sure that indigenous Australians are not discriminated at all. This therefore gives them an equal chance of accessing health facilities. Still, the government policy regarding research proposals in health has gone a long way in enhancing health among indigenous Australians. The health researches in the long run bring so many changes within a community especially if it is overly successful. Equally, establishment of community based services partly funded by the government to provide health care among indigenous Australians assists a lot in improving the health of these people. It ensures that they always have access to medical services, get preventive health services and hence guaranteeing a health community (Julian & Easthope 1999). Altering practices in response to patients with alternative understandings of health and illness The health care institution could attempt treating such patients with alternative health care. However, these alternative medicines must be examined, evaluated and tested before being used on the patients. The health care institution could also change the nutrition of such patients to suit them. Furthermore, such patients could be separated from other patients to avoid the influencing among these patients. Thus such a health care institution could come up with a system that accommodates usage of alternative medicine (Devitt 1998). Advantages Most of the alternative medicines do not have side effects. This is because most in most cases the alternative medicine will not suppress the symptoms but work with body. Again, providing such patients with alternative medicine is cost effective because they are basically affordable by even the families that are not even financially stable. Using the alternative medicines to treat is very helpful because they use only natural substances processed plainly. There is no need for high technology processing which make use of chemicals that could be hazardous and also having polluting agents (Territory Health Services 1996). Still, the ingredients used in the making of the alternative medicines are readily available. This means that there is no mystery or patent concerning these treatments hence the patients can use them successfully. These medicines do not require special prescriptions hence the health practitioners do not have to worry about the patients taking overdose treatments. Alternative medicines heal the diseases and at the same time allow growth in the patients. For example in homoeopathy children are normally put on a growth spurt after recovering from a disease that was treated using natural alternative medicines. This is not likely to happen when such patients are treated using pharmaceutical medicines. Instead, such medicines hold the children back instead of encouraging growth (Orbich 1999). When the alternative medicine is used to treat the patients according to the way they are used to, the medicine recognizes the factual character of disease and sickness. This is very much useful since it give immune system an opportunity to develop into a healthy one. Lastly, using the alternative medicine recognizes that that bodily symptoms only build up when one ignores the psychological and emotional signs and symptoms. This gives the patients and their physicians to deal with the complications as they come by and hence there is very small probability of such patients developing the physical symptoms which at times are very disturbing (Australian Institute of Welfare and Health, 2004). Disadvantages Incase the health practitioners opted for such patients to use the alternative medicines, the care using such medicines would take time to treat the patients. Therefore, both the patients and the care providers require having a lot of patience. Again, some herbal medicines have several ingredients and thus the health practitioners need to be sure that the patient’s body copes with the ingredients and that it is not allergic to such patients. Still, some herbal medicines could end up having negative side effects although such side effects will not be exposed immediately but it will make some time for example, it would take several months or even years. In the early stages if the herbal medicine is not coping with the patient’s body, it is wise to stop such medications and hence this would be wastage of time which would have been otherwise used in medical treatment of the disease. Moreover, the government does not control herbal alternative herbal medicine industry. Therefore it is very hard to tell the quality of such herbal medicines and also there is no known quality assurance for alternative herbal products. Again, using of herbal medicines on such patients it is hard to locate good practitioners and therefore the patient can start such herbal medicine without getting to consult a good practitioner. The taking of the alternative medicine may end up interacting with the conventional medical treatments, and such probable conflicts have to be investigated in the concern of the patient. Community controlled health services Community controlled health services are an example of primary health care since it mainstream focus is set on the targeted people or community. Firstly, it deals with the sicknesses and illnesses that are prone to the community but are not far fetched. Their occurrence could be due to geographical setup like climatic conditions, cultural practices like diet and hygiene among others. This ensures that the root cause of the ailment as well as the right diagnosis and treatment is dealt with. Consequently, the problem is eradicated at grassroots level rather than treating sings and symptoms which ensure no resurface of the issue at hand. Still when working with the community at hand, it ensures that the beneficiaries are the rightful persons thus no mismanagement of medical resources like drugs as well as embezzlement of funds. This ensures optimal mitigation of health conditions in the targeted setup. On the same note, it ensures equity distribution of resources like nurses since the community understands best the areas that have shortage of resources as opposed to more. This still boils down to assisting in mapping of other medical resources like hospitals. As a result, it helps planners in knowing locations that need resources to avoid concentration of resources in one setting as well as duplication of resources (Wood 2004). When the policy makers are from and in the targeted community, there is surety of sound decisions since they are best aware of what they need and are firs hand beneficiaries. This will less likely be under influence of political will since they have personal interests rather than people at heart (Territory Health Services 1996). Health workers should be from the immediate community. This will help breakdown language barrier that hinders optimal community health due to wrong diagnosis, wrong treatment and wrong interpretation of instructions as well as guidelines given by the doctors to the patients. It also gives health care providers a platform to encourage culturally acceptable practices that have an upward boost on ones health and discourage those that are disastrous to health since they have a clear picture of the community cultural practices, values and norms. All this is paramount to ensure a healthy community without violating their cultural practices and widening cultural gaps. Incase of the interpreters, they should be of locality. It helps in integration of positive cultural practices and discarding of negative practices. This is because they will be in a position to understand every verbal and non verbal cues of the dialect as they vary from one community to another. Still, they will be welcome as they will not be viewed with suspicions as they are not aliens or foreigners thus the patients will be in a position to open up. Incase of cultural beliefs like sorcery that have no scientific bearing, local health practitioners will be in a better position to convince the community otherwise without hurting or humiliating them since they understand the origin of these beliefs. On the other hand, the community will appreciate and marry their opinion since they have people they can identify with without feeling downtrodden (Glover & Wollacott 1992). Employment and involvement of community members in delivery of health uplifts their economic power. This makes them engage in day to day healthy practices like consumption of balanced diet since it is affordable. Still it ensures economic growth which facilitates income of social amenities like water and electricity among others. This in turn attracts both governmental as well as non governmental local and foreign investors. In the long run more and more health facilities are put in place which will incidentally attract more health staff since even there are ready social amenities (Potter& Perry 2005). Bibliography Potter& Perry (eds), 2005, Culture and Ethnicity: The context of Nursing in Australia and New Zealand, Potter and Perry’s fundamentals of Nursing, 2nd edn, Elsevier Australia, Marrickville, NSW. Wood, J., 2004, A first look at interpersonal Communication, Interpersonal Communication: Everyday encounters, Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, Belmont. 10-41. Australian Institute of Welfare and Health, 2004, Population Health: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People, Australia’s health 2004, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Canberra. 195-206. Salter, K., 2002. Risky Transactions. Trust, Kinship, and Ethnicity, Berghahn, New York. 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