Putting Indigenous Cultures and Indigenous Knowledges Front and Centre to Clinical Practice: Katherine Hospital Case Example

Carmen Parter (), Josephine Gwynn, Shawn Wilson, John C. Skinner, Elizabeth Rix () and Donna Hartz
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Carmen Parter: Djurali Centre for Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Education and Health Research, Heart Research Institute, Newtown, NSW 2042, Australia
Josephine Gwynn: Charles Perkins Centre, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
Shawn Wilson: Department of Community, Culture and Global Studies, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z3, Canada
John C. Skinner: Djurali Centre for Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Education and Health Research, Heart Research Institute, Newtown, NSW 2042, Australia
Elizabeth Rix: Adelaide Nursing School, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA 5005, Australia
Donna Hartz: School of Nursing and Midwifery, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 21, issue 1, 1-14

Abstract: The inclusion of Indigenous cultures, known as the cultural determinants of health, in healthcare policy and health professional education accreditation and registration requirements, is increasingly being recognised as imperative for improving the appalling health and well-being of Indigenous Australians. These inclusions are a strengths-based response to tackling the inequities in Indigenous Australians’ health relative to the general population. However, conceptualising the cultural determinants of health in healthcare practice has its contextual challenges, and gaps in implementation evidence are apparent. In this paper, we provide a case example, namely the Katherine Hospital, of how healthcare services can implement the cultural determinants of health into clinical practice. However, to be effective, health professionals must concede that Australia’s Indigenous peoples’ knowledges involving cultural ways of being, knowing and doing must co-exist with western and biomedical knowledges of health practice. We use the Katherine Hospital ABC Radio National Background Briefing interview, which was mentioned by two research participants in a 2020 study, as an example of good practice that we can learn from. Additionally, the six Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health actions contained in the 2nd Edition of the Australian National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards provide governance and accountability examples of how to enable Indigenous people’s cultures and their knowledges in the provision of services. The role of non-Indigenous clinical allies and accomplices is imperative when embedding and enacting Indigenous Australians’ cultures in service systems of health. When Indigenous Peoples access mainstream hospitals, deep self-reflection by allies and accomplices is necessary to enable safe, quality care, and treatment that is culturally safe and free from racism. Doing so can increase cultural responsiveness free of racism, thereby reducing the inherent power imbalances embedded within mainstream health services.

Keywords: Indigenous cultures; Indigenous knowledges; public healthcare policy; allies; accomplices; case example; cultural competency; cultural safety (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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