92026 Reproductive and Sexual Health | Medical Services and Healthcare

1.

Access to equitable medical services and healthcare for the Aboriginals and Torres Straight Islanders has for a long time been an issue in Australia. The Australian scholarly literature has dwelled on the same for a long time. The aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders are groups that are considered to be culturally, politically, economically, and socially disadvantaged. When laws, policies, and practices for eliminating indigenous cultures were affected, the Aboriginal Australians experienced loss, trauma, and grief. Children lost love and affection from their parents. The family, spiritual, and cultural ties were left broken and this left an intergenerational effect on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. The notable impacts the policies had on the Aboriginals and the Islanders were: physical and mental health problems, being separated from their primary health care, broken families, behavioral and delinquency problems, and racism.

The adverse effect of the separation policies was the lack of medical services, identity loss, poor access to education, loneliness and low self-esteem among others. Many children were separated from their parents and communities resulting in the anguish of identity search. It led to depression, excessive alcohol consumption, and drug and substance abuse, which affected their mental judgment. The separation also led to trauma that has been passed from generation to generation. The trauma has also caused chronic pain among the Aboriginals and the Islanders. Therefore, the policies for eliminating indigenous cultures affected both the physical and psychological health of Aboriginals and the Torres Strait Islanders as well as their likeliness to access health care (Bringing Them Home: Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families, 2014).

2.

Mortality rates have for a long time been used for measuring the health status of a particular population. It has been resourceful particularly for measuring improvement between two different populations over time (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2014). Measuring mortality rates also helps in knowing the gap that exists between the populations of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and the rest of the Australian Population. It also helps in identifying the main cause of death, the manner in which it can be prevented, how it can be managed, as well as its prevalence. It has been noted that the Aboriginals and the Torres Strait Australians are characterized with higher death rates than other Australian populations.

The factors contributing to higher indigenous mortality are the poor or low utilization of health care services, obesity or overweight, excessive consumption of alcoholic drinks, poor nutrition, and tobacco smoking. The factors contribute to diseases and illnesses that cause death among the Aboriginals and the Islanders. The main diseases and illnesses are digestive diseases, respiratory diseases, circulatory diseases, neoplasms, nutritional and metabolic diseases; and endocrine. The indigenous life expectancy was 67.2 years and 72.9 for males and females respectively. It was 11.5 years and 9.7 years lower than for non-indigenous males and females respectively ("Mortality in a Cohort of Remote-living Aboriginal Australians and Associated Factors," n.d.).

References

Australian Bureau of Statistics. Causes of Death, Australia, 2012. Underlying causes of death

(Australia). Canberra: ABS, 2014.

Bringing Them Home: Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families. (2014, June 11). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl82VMuuKI0

Mortality in a Cohort of Remote-living Aboriginal Australians and Associated Factors. (n.d.). Retrieved September 16, 2018, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5886486