Answer To: Assessment Two Assessment Task Essay Value (of total mark) 50% Length 2500 words (+/-10%) excluding...
Somprikta answered on May 17 2021
Legislation to Protect Health of Indigenous People 2
LEGISLATION TO PROTECT HEALTH OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
Table of Contents
Introduction 3
The Problems 3
Impact of Legislation 4
Applying the Rights as a Social Worker 7
Strengths and Limitations of the Legislations 9
Conclusion 10
References 12
Introduction
The right to good health and access to a proper healthcare system is universal to every individual across the globe. The Australian aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are one of the indigenous communities which is compelled to go through the problems of discrimination and prejudice even in respect of access to good healthcare organisations. As a social worker, there has been an observation regarding the deteriorating health conditions of the indigenous people. Therefore, through this essay, the health aspect of the people will be addressed. Their rough experiences with healthcare providers force them to abstain from visiting healthcare centres in order to avoid being disrespected and discriminated against in comparison to the normative citizens of Australia. However, the Government of Australia has enforced a number of legislative acts to protect and preserve the cultural heritage and offer equal health benefits to the indigenous communities of Australia. Various governmental and non-governmental organisations, community programs have also come forward for providing support to the aboriginal community.
The Problems
From the perspective of a social worker, there have been several instances where it has been observed that the health conditions of the indigenous community have been disregarded and dismissed because of their cultural identity and differential status as an aboriginal individual. As a result of this, they have experienced innumerable health issues which have been left untreated by the healthcare centres. The indigenous people of Australia tend to suffer more from health ailments in comparison to other Australians. They mostly suffer from chronic and communicable health diseases, child and infant health, mental health as well as life expectancy. The Australian government and the Primary Health Care sector are providing essential and effective support to the indigenous communities through the help of targeted prevention, early intervention and various other support activities to deal with health-related ailments. The aboriginal community are twice more likely to suffer from the burden of diseases and injury in comparison to the non-indigenous Australians (Australian Government, 2017).
From the experience of several community programs and interventions, it has been observed that the diseases and deteriorating health conditions are not acknowledged by the healthcare providers for multiple reasons, which is inclusive of their cultural identity, communication barrier, prejudices and sense of discrimination. The indigenous Australians belonging to the most disadvantageous socio-economic status of living tend to suffer more from health ailments. According to Bell et al. (2020), apart from the risk of chronic health diseases, there are several other behavioral risk factors that lead to their poor health conditions. The rampant consumption of tobacco, alcohol, other factors such as high body mass index and physical inactivity are responsible for the deteriorating health and wellbeing of the indigenous Australians.
The various preventable risk factors such as tobacco and alcohol consumption, illicit use of drugs, unprotected sex and poor diet not only affect the individual, but also severely impact the individuals from the progressive generations, thereby affecting the health of the future community to a certain extent (Australian Government, 2017). The several kinds of chronic diseases also impact the indigenous Australians to a great extent. The aboriginals of Australia are five times more susceptible to suffer from diabetes and 4.5 times more likely to suffer from cardiovascular diseases (Mazel, 2018). Although few parameters are observably getting better in terms of health and wellbeing, according to Rheault et al. (2019), aspects such as diabetes, mental disorders, cardiovascular diseases, smoking associated cancers, infant and child mortality are increasing by leaps and bounds among the indigenous Australians.
Impact of Legislation
The indigenous Australians have been subjected to increased instances of discrimination, prejudice and disregard. Even in the healthcare system, they have been perceived from a negative view and looked down upon. As a result of such a perception, according to Mayes (2020), the indigenous Australians have suffered from an increased rate of trauma and fear regarding the safety and security of their existence, being the non-dominant section of the society. According to Menzies (2019), the government of Australia has attempted to support the indigenous community by offering protection in terms of their cultural identity, language and cultural knowledge.
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was an act that was adopted by the General Assembly in the year 2007. According to Creamer and Hall (2019), the legislative act being the first human rights act that was implemented for the collective rights of the indigenous people aimed at setting out general principles and recognized rights to the ideas of nationality, self-determination, equality as well as freedom from adverse experiences of discrimination and so on. Although the aspect of equality was mentioned in the framework, the complete notion of equality in terms of health benefits and access to healthcare services was not realised even after the implementation of the act. The aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community of Australia continued to have harsh experiences in the arena of receiving proper health care. The act primarily emphasised on restoring and protecting the cultural identity and linguistic uniqueness of the aboriginal community of Australia. Moreover, the act was not functional and effective on the practical plane, rather remained as a sort of aspirational norm.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, however, gave importance to the comprehensive approach of health as defined by the World Health Organisation. The World Health Organisation focused on perceiving health...