The Health of the Indigenous Populations in Australia - Essay Example

The status of indigenous health in contemporary Australia Introduction: Health of the indigenous people amid a changed world has always been of significant interest for the researchers. Historical and political policies and practises influence the health status of a country and Australia is no exception. The indigenous people who have been isolated for long from the modern world once exposed to foreign influx show considerable volume of change in their health status. Such changes are usually owing to gradual or sudden exposure to unusual ambience and policies of the government towards them. Once their natural habitat got disturbed and they were compelled to share their environment with foreign entities together with policies that were far from the nature’s law; the indigenous people of Australia embarked on a platform different from their natural environment. Such change on one hand provided them with an improved health care system and on the other introduced them with different diseases previously unknown to them. The change in types of disease exposure for the indigenous people of Australia after they realized similar exposure and were subject to government policies are worth of consideration and is expected to result in understanding of their present health status. Furthermore, it is also interesting to find out that how these historical and political factors have impacted the Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) and thereby influenced the health status of the contemporary Australian indigenous people (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2007). The present paper tries to analyse these aspects in order to draw a conclusion on the same. Historical, Colonial and Political Context of Indigenous health It is widely believed that the indigenous people of Australia were in far better health than the contemporary European people back in 1788. Unlike the European people “smallpox, measles, influenza, tuberculosis, scarlet fever, venereal syphilis and gonorrhoea” were absent among them. They usually suffered from hepatitis B, common bacterial infections and some intestinal parasites. Most of the deaths among indigenous people were from trauma and cases of anaemia, arthritis, periodontal disease, tooth problem were common among them. However, as a whole the disease exposure and its subsequent impact on the Australian indigenous population were far lower among the indigenous Australian people than that of the European population of the 18th century. However all these have changed once the European settlers made their way into the Australian inland. Diseases previously unknown to Indigenous Australian people started to take its toll from them and small pox resulted in huge loss of lives. Not only these diseases impacted the immediate sufferer rather they also initiated severe social disruption and epidemic that depopulated the Australian indigenous people. However, the European settlers not only introduced new diseases and turned a relatively healthy community into feeble one, but they also robbed the indigenous people of their livelihood and social status of dominant class in the region. Occupation of new land and fishing stocks by the European settlers robbed off the indigenous people of nutritious food made them vulnerable to diseases. Again the European settlers demeaned the indigenous culture and dominated the existence of indigenous Australians and that had inflicted severe psychological trauma among them. When it was realized that the indigenous population of Australia was at a decline; then to restore them the colonial authorities set up Aboriginal protection boards. The first aboriginal protection board was set up in Victoria and latter in other parts of the country, such as in New South Wells in 1883. These aboriginal protection boards were set up under Aboriginal Protection Act of 1869. However what had been set up to restore the order in fact led to the decline of the aboriginal people to a greater extent. The provisions mentioned in the act were actually imposed severe restrictions on the free flowing indigenous life and justified the forced separation of aboriginal children from their families. Later a national investigation into the separation of the indigenous children opined that between 1910 and 1970 one in three to one in ten indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families. These restrictive and biased policies were operative in Australia till 1961. The impacts of these restrictive policies were such grim that even in 1961 one third of Australian aborigines used to live in settlements in eastern Australia. (Australian Indigenous Health Info, 2012) Social Determinants of Health and the indigenous people of Australia Though the historical, colonial and political policies and their eventual impact on the health of the indigenous people cannot be ignored, yet the social and structural aspects of the same should also be acknowledged. The historical facts, the colonial oppression and the flawed political policies indeed negatively influenced the health of the indigenous people of Australia. However, the entire social and structural concept of health to the indigenous people and the failure to understand the same by the European settlers has also contributed to the eventual demeaning of the health of the indigenous people. Unlike the European people health is not a separate thing in the life of the indigenous people of Australia. To them health is holistic and encompasses all the aspects of life. Livelihood, freedom, social dominance, culture, religion and family all are important part of the health of the indigenous people. The biomedical approach to define health is useful but not applicable to indigenous population and the social determinant of health function is much more appropriate for the same. Consideration of social determinant of health function for the indigenous people of Australia in terms of education, employment and income would reveal the reasons for the gap in health status among the indigenous and non-indigenous people of Australia. According to the 2011 census report of Australia, 1.6% of indigenous people have not attended school. The same stands for 0.9% for the non-indigenous people. 25% of the indigenous people have attended year 12 whereas 52% of non-indigenous people have attended year 12 as the highest year of their school education. The post school qualification rate stands at 26% for the indigenous people and 49% of the non-indigenous people. The gap in education widens with higher educational qualification; as an example only 4.6% of indigenous people have graduation or higher educational degree whereas 20% of non-indigenous people have attained the same. Considering the employment status 42% of the indigenous people aged 15 years or older are employed and the same statistics stands at 61% for the non-indigenous people. Again the type of occupation indicates great divergence for the indigenous people; the main occupation of indigenous people is labourer and for non-indigenous people is professional. The indigenous people earn only 59% of what non-indigenous people earn in Australia (Australian Indigenous Health Info 2012). The Status of the health of the indigenous people in Australia and the flaw of the present policies Jenny Reath (2005) mentioned that health of the indigenous people in Australia is in critical condition. Referring Torres Strait Islander she has mentioned “Life expectancy rates remain 17 years less than the total Australian population, age adjusted death rates are four times higher than those of non-Indigenous Australians and the range of common morbidities in these communities is more similar to that of a third world country than what we would expect in Australia” (Reath, 2005, p.845). She has also mentioned that the shortfall of fund for providing adequate health service to the people of the concerned region is around $400 million per year (Reath, 2005, p.845). According to a report published by Services for Australian Rural and Remote Allied Health (SARRH) “On a wide range of health measures the 34% of Australians living in regional and remote areas (…) do worse than those living in major cities” (SARRAH, 2008, p.2). The report has blamed the inequality in terms of social determinant of health function as one of the major reasons for the same. Another report published by the Australian Human Rights Commission hasblamed the lack of implementation regarding human rights as the main flaw of the policies directed towards the uplift of the health status of aboriginals of Australia (Australian Human Rights Commission, 2005) The unsatisfactory progress regarding the health of the indigenous people has been acknowledged by the Prime Minister report. It has been mentioned there that in order to bridge the gap between the indigenous and non-indigenous people much more efforts have to be put into action following the Social Determinant of Health Function (Closing the Gap, 2014, p.6). Conclusion What has been discussed so far reveals the fact that the health status of the indigenous people in Australia is the outcome of the historical and political policies towards them along with the colonial exploitation from the ending years of the eighteenth century. The flawed conception of the European settlers and their subsequent policy prescription that ignored the aspects of the Social Determinant of Health Function has worsened the condition instead of restoring the order. Though after 1961, the Australian government has taken fresh initiatives towards a more holistic up lift of the health of the indigenous people, but miles to go before they can bridge the gap between the health status of the indigenous and non-indigenous people. The ray of hope lies in the fact that the government is now up holding the SDoH model in order to reach something meaningful and is not getting baffled following the biomedical definition of health. However their approach needs to be much more humane in nature with adequate respect to the implementation of human rights as far as health policies towards the indigenous people are concerned. References Australian Indigenous Health Info (2012), The context of Indigenous health, retrieved on May , 2014 from: http://www.healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au/health-facts/overviews/the-context-of-indigenous-health#fnl-3 Australian Human Rights Commission, (2007), Social determinants and the health of Indigenous peoples in Australia, retrieved on May 3 2014 from: https://www.humanrights.gov.au/news/speeches/social-determinants-and-health-indigenous-peoples-australia-human-rights-based Australian Human Rights Commission (2005), Achieving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health equality within a generation, retrieved on May 3, 2013 from: http://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/achieving-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-health-equality-within-generation-human#the-human. Closing the Gap (2014), Australian Government, retrieved on May 3, 2014 from: http://www.dpmc.gov.au/publications/docs/closing_the_gap_2014.pdf Reath, J. (2005), Supporting GPs to work better in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, Australian Family Physician, 34. 10, retrieved on May 3, 2014 from: http://www.racgp.org.au/afp/200510/200510reath.pdf SARRAH, (2008), Provision of Allied Health Services to Australian Regional & Remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities. Available at: http://www.sarrah.org.au/site/content.cfm?document_id=699074¤t_page_category_code=92&did=28091&dmodule=FILEMANAGER. (accessed on May 3, 2014) Read More