Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health‐care delivery: The views of health‐care professionals in Sydney's tertiary paediatric hospitals

Abstract

The opportunities we have identified to improve health-care delivery to Aboriginal patients include: increasing Aboriginal cultural competency training, correct identification of Aboriginal patients, referring Aboriginal patients to Aboriginal health-care services and increased awareness of Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services.

Understanding an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child’s journey through paediatric care in Western Australia

“…Cultural awareness training has changed the way many health professionals view Aboriginal families and our findings support the notion that this is helping make hospital visits more beneficial 23,24 . Training contributes substantially to health service providers understanding Aboriginal culture and can break down barriers not only in the health system but within the wider community 25 . Continuous quality improvement, using tools such as the Organisational Cultural Competence Assessment Tool and implementing cultural training into health professional university training have all been shown to elicit awareness and positive organisational change 26–28 .…”

“…Despite some success, there is still more that needs to be done. Across Australia, many tertiary hospitals have recognised that mainstream hospitals are not responsive to Aboriginal people’s cultural needs 25,29 . In Department of Heath Western Australia all health employees are mandated to complete online Aboriginal cultural training; however, it appears that more could be done to help support health service providers to provide appropriate cultural care to Aboriginal families.…”

“…23,24 Training contributes substantially to health service providers understanding Aboriginal culture and can break down barriers not only in the health system but within the wider community. 25 Continuous quality improvement, using tools such as the Organisational Cultural Competence Assessment Tool and implementing cultural training into health professional university training have all been shown to elicit awareness and positive organisational change. [26][27][28] Despite some success, there is still more that needs to be done.…”

“…Across Australia, many tertiary hospitals have recognised that mainstream hospitals are not responsive to Aboriginal people's cultural needs. 25,29 In Department of Heath Western Australia all health employees are mandated to complete online Aboriginal cultural training; however, it appears that more could be done to help support health service providers to provide appropriate cultural care to Aboriginal families. While racism in health services remains an issue, 30,31 dedicated programs to improve relations between health service staff and Aboriginal families should be highlighted in policy and practice, 32 particularly if they have been evaluated for their effectiveness.…”

Cultural Safety and Child Protection Responses in Hospitals: a Scoping Review

“…Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people consistently reported the importance of sensitivity to culture in healthcare provision (Tanner et al 2004;Chapman et al 2014;McAuliffe et al 2016;Raman et al 2017). The usefulness of cultural training for staff was emphasised by healthcare consumers (Chapman et al 2014) andproviders (McAuliffe et al 2016;Raman et al 2017;Nyanga et al 2018) with child protection workers emphasising that this type of learning is continuous-'a progression thing ' (McAuliffe et al 2016, p. 370). Additional approaches to improve the cultural safety of patients included the display of identifiable cultural features (Chapman et al 2014), sincere partnerships with local Aboriginal communities and services (Chapman et al 2014;Raman et al 2017) and dedicated Aboriginal staff (Tanner et al 2004;Chapman et al 2014;McAuliffe et al 2016;Nyanga et al 2018).…”