Background of the Issue
The accessibility and cost of medicines for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander remains a significant factor when it comes to reaching health equality across Australia. The Pharmaceutical Benefits Schedule (PBS) expenditure for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is approximately half that of the non-Indigenous average despite the three times higher level of illness for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population.
In July 2010, the Closing The Gap (CTG) PBS co-payment measure was introduced by the Australian Government in response to the rate of illness disparency in the Australian population (Australian Government Department of Health, 2013). The primary target was to reduce or remove the patient co-payment for PBS medicines for eligible Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients that are affected by or at risk of chronic diseases.
However, recent developments in the co-payment measures has proposed the revival of the Hawk Government’s 1991 Budget measure. This means that a ‘modest’, approximately $6, co-payment will be imposed on Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) non-referred general practitioner (GP) visits (Australian Centre for Health Research, 2013). This proposal of a $6 co-payment would save the Federal Government $70 million over four years. However, many Health care and Social Work professionals ask ‘at what cost?’
Dr Beaumont told ABC that if the co-payments were imposed on indigenous people it would have drastic effects - there is no doubt that “the number of dollars would be enough to keep people away from very important, particularly chronic disease services” (La Canna, 2013).
Although the proposed co-payment measure on GP visits propose that indigenous people would g...
... middle of paper ...
...ticipants deciding not to initiate care (Manning and Newhouse et al., 1987, pp. 251--277). These findings further solidifies Dr Beaumont’s concerns about the co-payments deterring people away from a range of health care services including chronic disease services. The controversial and sensitive issue involved with patients missing or receiving delayed treatment for significant acute and chronic illnesses as a result of the co-payment measures is significant enough for Health Care and Social Work professionals to advocate against such a proposal. Despite the eligibility of some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to waive the co-payments and health care and social work empowerment the issue of careful monitoring and risk management, especially in relation to patients deciding to forgo essential GP services will eventually fall on the responsibility of the patient.
K. Stremikis, C. Schoen, and A.-K. Fryer. A Call for Change: The 2011 Commonwealth Fund Survey of Public Views of the U.S. Health System, The Commonwealth Fund, April 2011. Retrieved April 26th, 2011 from web site: http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Publications/Issue-Briefs/2011/Apr/Call-for-Change.aspx
Aboriginal health is majorly determined by several social factors that are related to their cultural beliefs. Health professionals regularly find it difficult to provide health care to aboriginal people due to the cultural disparity that exists between the conventional and aboriginal cultures, predominantly with regard to systems of health belief (Carson, Dunbar, & Chenhall, 2007). The discrepancy between the aboriginal culture and typical Western customs seems to amplify the difficulties experienced in every cross-cultural setting of health service delivery (Selin & Shapiro, 2003). Most of the social determinants of the aboriginal health are due to their strict belief in superstition and divine intervention.
1) First topic chosen was wellness which is “a conscious, self-directed and evolving process of achieving full potential.” (The National Wellness Institute, para 3) What wellness means to me is being with my family, surrounding myself with your loved ones, or even being with the environment. To Indigenous people it is the exact same with their wellness with each other, or the wellness with their environment. Mental wellness in Indigenous is living a journey along the way being fulfilled in good health. This changed my thoughts because sometimes I don’t always see the good or surround myself in happiness which can create bad health for me.
(II) The enacting of Medicare Part D in 2006 only helped to fuel America’s hunger for prescription medication. In 2003, President George W. Bush announced and signed the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (also known as the Medicare Modernization Act, or MMA) on December 8th. The roughly $400 billion dollar measure was marketed to the American public as something that will provide care for the millions of senior citizens who, at the time, were struggling to afford prescription medication. This was the largest development of Medicare since 1965, which is when the program was initially created, and gave hope to those wishing for positive medical reform. According to title XI of the “Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003”, the most significant change will be the affordability of prescription drugs by implementing the importation of drugs from Canada, along with necessary safety measures, in order to lessen the cost (United States Congress, 832). For those who were in retirement homes and lacked a steady income, the affordability of drugs was often a deciding factor in the decision to seek medical attention and the idea that those individuals ceased to live simply because they lacked the funds tugged at the heartstrings of many Americans.
Its bid was to reduce health expenditure by deporting individuals who did not have visas or were uncertain surrounding their immigration status. Agraharkar further argued that deportation of patients is merely a discharge of the prohibition of patient dumping as well as unavailability of health resources. Blalock and Wolfe (2001) found the reason for the increase in patient dumping is related to the underfunded health care system. Only after the law requiring all hospitals to provide medical assistant that the incidence became greater. Additionally, hospitals who provide care to uninsured patients are not often reimbursed for their service. Thus, this trend of patient dumping greatly affects low-income/SES citizens. (2016) report a link between SES and health is due to inequalities in resources. (2016) detailed the fundamental cause theory to be the overall underlying cause of many health inequalities, such as patient dumping. This theory seeks to demonstrate the association between SES and health inequalities (patient dumping) over time to a lack of range of resources to guard and/or improve
In 1968 the Commonwealth Office of Aboriginal Affairs was established and acknowledged health as a major area for development and therefore started providing grants for health programs (NACCHO, History in health from 1967, online, 29/8/15). The office was later named the Department of Aboriginal Affairs in 1972, and it began making direct grants to the new aboriginal medical services opening around the nation (NACCHO, History in health from 1967, online, 29/8/15). In 1973 the Commonwealth Department of Health established an Aboriginal Health Branch in order to provide professional advice to the government (NACCHO, History in health from 1967, online, 29/8/15). Throughout the next several years indigenous health was on the radar of importance in the Government, in 1981 the Commonwealth Government initiated a $50 million five year Aboriginal Public Health Improvement plan (NACCHO, History in health from 1967, online, 29/8/15). Clearly more progress was achieved in the issue of health in the years after the referendum than those between colonisations and
0.8% of the overall Federal health expenditure in 2009 which was spent on Aboriginal health. The overall wellbeing of an individual is more than just being free from disease. It is about their social, emotional, spiritual, physiological as well as the physical prosperity. Indigenous health issues are all around us, but we don’t recognise because it doesn’t affect us, but this issue is a concern to Indigenous Australia and also to modern day Catholics in Australia The statistics relating to Indigenous health is inexcusable, life expectancy is at an all time low, higher hospilatisation for avoidable diseases, alerting rates of deaths from diabetes and kidney disease. This issue is bigger than we all think, for example 13% of Indigenous homes
Walter, M. (2007). Aboriginality, poverty and health-exploring the connections. Beyond bandaids: exploring the underlying social determinants of aboriginal health. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.lowitja.org.au/sites/default/files/docs/Beyond-Bandaids-CH5.pdf/ [Accessed 10 Apr 2014]
The first cause of poor transitional outcomes, cost, affects those who most commonly suffer from economic social determinants of health. Those with no insurance or with gaps in coverage are less likely to receive transitional care in comparison to those with adequate insurance due to inability to pay for necessary medical care (McManus et al., 2013). The issue is additionally compounded by the fact that up to 30% of CSHCN lack insurance coverage
Advanced knowledge of Aboriginal Health policy and issues at the level and national level including understanding successful measures around Closing the Gap in Aboriginal Health inequality. My desire to work in the aboriginal field begins since I was very young. That is why at 16 years of my age I started to be even more interested in understanding all the issues related to the aborigines of this country. Over time, I looked that all my knowledge be trained at health level basis to help to improve the Aboriginal quality of life standards.
Mooney, G Collard, K Taylor, T (2003a) Costing cultural security, SPHERe Discussion Paper, Perth, Western Australia: Curtin University, Division of Health Sciences, viewed online 10 September 2011. http://www.eniar.org/news/health7.html Mooney, G. (2003b). The 'Standard'. Inequity in Australian health care: how do we progress from here?
It has one of the highest life expectancies in the world. In order to prevent the smallpox epidemic, the early health care developed in Australia was in 1788, after the arrival of Captain Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet with the establishment of NSW public hospital. Eventually, in 1984 a universal public health insurance scheme; Medicare was introduced to provide free or subsidized treatment. A visit to a GP in Australia costs about $50-$80 , when they are sick. About half of the money is reclaimable through a nationwide Medicare insurance Scheme. Whereas, prescribed drugs mostly are funded through Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) to the residence of Australia, as well as certain foreign visitors. Moreover, treatment in public hospitals is completely covered by Medicare, though people with private health insurance often choose to use private hospitals. For the people in Australia, Australia’s healthcare is delivered in three different areas such as Hospitals (private and public), Primary health care and other recurrent care (AIHW,
...s even harder due to the distance and cost. In 2008 Indigenous children were less likely to be immunised and Indigenous people were 5 times more likely to be hospitalized for illnesses that could be prevented by timely medical intervention (Australian human rights commission, 2008a).
Thank you for taking time to read my letter. As a nursing student of University of Technology Sydney, I studied contemporary indigenous subject this semester. In this letter I want to illustrate 3 main social determinants of health that impact indigenous Australian health which I found and analysed during my recently study. And also offer some suggestion that could help the government improve aboriginal Australian mental health conditions in the future.
Turrell, G. et al. (2006) Health inequalities in Australia: morbidity, health behaviors, risk factors and health service use. Canberra: Queensland University of Technology and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2006. Retrieved on March 29th, 2011 from http://152.91.62.50/publications/phe/hiamhbrfhsu/hiamhbrfhsu-c00.pdf.