The Global Issue: Good Health
Having good health is the right of every individual in the world. People of Australia also have the right of having and achieving good health. Good health is about having better life expectancy and having longer, healthier and productive lives. Good health is not just important for the individual, but it is also important for the economic development and sustainability. Good health is not just about attaining the physical well-being, but it is about achieving mental, social, emotional, and cultural well-being of people in the whole community. Every individual in the community should be able to achieve their complete potential, so that they may be able to contribute to their community.
According to the definition provided by World Health Organization, “Health is the state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity” (Habersack & Luschin, 2013). Therefore, it can be understood that poor health of the people displays the prevailing inequality in the society. Australian Aboriginal people are facing such inequalities and have been suffering from poor health. One of the most significant reasons could be excluding the potential health consumers from the policies and procedures. Indigenous people of Australia have been facing many inequalities and major inequality they face is related to good health. The life expectancy of the Australian Aboriginal people is much less than non-indigenous population of the country (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2017).
This is mainly due to the poor living conditions, inadequate housing facility, lack of proper food and food resources, lifestyle, lack of education, lack of employment, and the historical conditions associated with colonization. Some of the other barriers are cultural barriers, economic barriers and physical barriers (Ware, 2013). However, the question is that the Australian Government is making the significant efforts for improving the health of indigenous population of the country? Are appropriate funds being released by the government to help indigenous people? Good health is the goal that is being hampered by various social and economic inequalities that are required to be addressed simultaneously.
Ways to Address Challenges
Some of the significant ways and strategies can be used to address the issue of poor health among the indigenous population of Australia and can achieve the common good of “Good health”. Indigenous people of Australia suffer from higher level of illness and die at young age in comparison to non-indigenous population. Good health among the people should be considered as the shared responsibility and different factors should work together to foster good health among indigenous people. The health care system of Australia is very complex system that has to seen with significant attention. The poor health of the indigenous population has to be associated with the various social determinants.
First of all it is important that authorities may focus on identifying the roots of the problem. Indigenous people have been living in the hunter-gatherer lifestyle before the European colonization. But, after colonization their life and lifestyle changed significantly. They also had to face some of the drastic inhuman incidents that specifically affected their physical and mental health (Ware, 2013). The poor health status of the people has resulted in the higher rates of mortality among the infants as well as among the adults. The indigenous population suffer from more chronic diseases and have higher rate of illness in comparison to remaining population of Australia. The study of Artuso et al (2013) identified that communication issues is the significant barrier that restricts aboriginal people to receive better health care services.
Most of the indigenous population lives in the rural and remote areas of the country. The government of the country is required to make significant efforts to provide quality health services in the rural and remote areas of Australia. The healthcare services should be able to provide prompt services and should be able to responds to physical and mental health requirements of the people (Ware, 2013). Since communication is the significant barrier, the healthcare system of Australia requires providing culturally safe, linguistically diverse and culturally competent services to this population (Herring et al, 2013).
For the people living in rural and remote areas, making the healthy food choices is very difficult. The reason behind this is that there is limited availability of the fresh food items in these areas and the healthy and fresh food items are high in price (Rosier, 2011). Indigenous people are culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) and are also considered as socially isolated (Rosier, 2011). Therefore, these people experience higher rate of food insecurity (Ferguson et al, 2017). The changes in the traditional diet and the higher intake of the unhealthy food have increased the risk of chronic diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, respiratory diseases etc. The policy makers of Australia are firstly required to provide the sufficient food resources at reasonable prices (Ferguson et al, 2017). Lack of food resources can be associated to financial resources. Indigenous people have lack of appropriate employment and income that significantly affect their food choices (Rosier, 2011). Therefore, the child and family service organizations are required to work close to these people.
For addressing the problem of poor health and meeting the goal of common good by providing good health to every individual in the society, the underlying causes of the poor health are required to be addressed. Providing the appropriate health services will not be able to solve the problem of poor health. Therefore, for the purpose of common good, it is important to address the issues of poverty, lack of health related education, appropriate use of the funds and restructuring the funds according to the needs of indigenous people. The studies have found that use of illicit drugs such as alcohol and tobacco is very high among the indigenous population. Misuse of the drugs has significant impact on the physical, mental and social well-being of families and communities (Bryant et al, 2015). The most significant reason of the poor health of indigenous is the misuse of the illicit drug that negatively affects the life of these people.
The higher misuse of alcohol and tobacco among the indigenous people reflects the history of oppression, destruction and dispossession. The burden of alcohol use among the indigenous population is also very high (Wilson et al, 2010). Substance abuse and alcohol dependency remains to contribute to poor health of these people. Therefore, these people require more holistic, effective and well-funded strategies that could address the various social issues or the social determinants in their life.
It is important to integrate the WHO’s recommendations in to the new strategies that include declaration of the fundamental human right to good health (Habersack & Luschin, 2013). The significance of the good health strategies not only lies in enforcing the health standards at the national level, but it is required to be applied through political sphere to consider human dignity and rights as the most significant factors. Health is considered as the political issue and not just be considered as the mere absence of disease among the population. The legal structure of the states should safeguard basic economic rights of people such as freedom to earn, rights to property, equal participation in society etc.
References
Artuso, S., Cargo, M., Brown, A., & Daniel, M. (2013). Factors influencing health care utilisation among Aboriginal cardiac patients in central Australia: a qualitative study. BMC health services research, 13(1), 83.
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2017). Life Expectancy. Retrieved from:https://www.aihw.gov.au/deaths/life-expectancy/
Bryant, J., Ward, J., Wand, H., Byron, K., Bamblett, A., Waples?Crowe, P., … & Kaldor, J.(2015). Illicit and injecting drug use among Indigenous young people in urban, regional and remote Australia. Drug and alcohol review.
Ferguson, M., Brown, C., Georga, C., Miles, E., Wilson, A., & Brimblecombe, J. (2017).Traditional food availability and consumption in remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, Australia. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health.
Habersack, M., & Luschin, G. (2013). WHO-definition of health must be enforced by national law: a debate. BMC medical ethics, 14(1), 24.
Herring, S., Spangaro, J., Lauw, M., & McNamara, L. (2013). The intersection of trauma, racism, and cultural competence in effective work with aboriginal people: Waiting for trust. Australian Social Work, 66(1), 104-117.
Hotez, P. J. (2014). Aboriginal populations and their neglected tropical diseases. PLoS Negl Trop Dis, 8(1), e2286.
Rosier, K. (2011). Food insecurity in Australia: What is it, who experiences it and how can child and family services support families experiencing it?. Australian Institute of Family Studies.
Ware, V. (2013). Improving the accessibility of health services in urban and regional settings for Indigenous people (Vol. 27). Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
Ware, V. (2013). Improving the accessibility of health services in urban and regional settings for Indigenous people (Vol. 27). Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
Wilson M, Stearne A, Gray D, Saggers S (2010). The harmful use of alcohol amongst Indigenous Australians. Australian Indigenous HealthBulletin 10 (3).
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