Aboriginal Health

The health of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples compared to the non-Indigenous population is significantly poorer (Wieland 2014, p. 12). The “Closing the Gap” campaign aims to create generational Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health equality (Wieland 2014, p. 12). This essay will discuss the Aboriginal And Torres Strait health reforms, factors that impact on their health and wellbeing and strategies that allow protection against adversity. This essay will also discuss examples of childhood services available, targeted interventions to improve health and wellbeing in their early years and rationales and actions the Registered Nurse can use to engage Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families when providing health care. Approaches to communication, examples of how the nurse can work collaboratively with families and health care professionals and how to ensure health care is compatible with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders concept of family will also be discussed in this essay.

Health care reform is a general rubric used for discussing major health policy creation or changes (Nangala 2008, p. 302). Health care reform typically attempts to broaden the population that receives health care, improve access to health care specialists, improve the quality of health care and decrease the cost of health care (Nangala 2008, p. 302).

There are currently six National Agreements (Wieland 2014, p. 12). These agreements address all Australians including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders (Wieland 2014, p. 12). These agreements are the National Health Care Agreement, National Education Agreement, National agreement for Skills and Workforce Development, National Disability Agreement, National Affordable Housing Agreement and the National Indigenous Reform Agreement (Wieland 2014, p. 12).

The National Indigenous Reform Agreement sets out the objectives, outcomes and outputs needed to close the gap in Indigenous