More at ... https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... healthcareWhy now is the time to disrupt the colonialist model of healthcare. To properly care for First Peoples’ health, medical systems need to incorporate First Peoples’ beliefs.
Disruptive” is a word that can also be described as: disturbing, unruly, upsetting and even troublesome. All words I’ve heard, and I’m sure many of our peoples have heard, to describe us, usually in a negative way for not “fitting the mould”. Yet there’s never been a more exciting time to be disruptive, especially in the field of health.
This week the Australian Indigenous Doctors’ Association is holding its annual conference on beautiful Larrakia country (Darwin) with the theme “Disruptive Innovations in Healthcare”, which frankly is well overdue. Mainstream healthcare systems designed by and for non-Indigenous people are not only less effective than community-controlled health organisations in improving outcomes for our peoples, they can be downright harmful.
Healthcare systems in Australia that are considered “mainstream” are fundamentally colonial organisations: designed, established and informed by Western paradigms and biomedical models of care. As such, these healthcare systems, from tertiary level hospitals to local health services, are run by and for those who “fit the norm”.
What is the norm, I hear you ask, and who defines this?
At present, the norm is those who will fit within the constraints of the Western worldview of health, including how healthcare is accessed, understood, adhered to and accepted.
Ultimately, this results in a health system which is not fit for purpose, fails to cater our peoples’ values and results in many people not receiving the care they need.
First Peoples are the antithesis of colonial; we are inherently disruptive to how the healthcare system (and many other systems in fact) operate in Australia. Our disruption has historically been, and continues to be, rejected by the mainstream. Our unique lens, which views health as holistic and all-encompassing, has often been ignored or worse, considered inferior, as evidenced by a lack of traditional practices in these services.
I acknowledge, however, that there are many impressive Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people working in health who are challenging these systems, and I recognise and deeply appreciate the many elders and ancestors before me who have tremendously fought for health systems designed by our ways of knowing, being and doing. Aboriginal community controlled health organisations have been incorporating First Peoples’ unique worldview and practice of health for the last 40-plus years (or 60,000-plus years if we’re acknowledging the traditional healthcare provided long before this).
Our people drove this healthcare innovation, which has been a crucial step towards providing more culturally appropriate and safe care for our peoples, but there are still many healthcare services and hospitals that are dragging behind.
If innovation in healthcare is to be truly successful, it has to be across all levels and sectors of the system.
We need to see a transition from outdated approaches to health, such as those that only focus on the disease or illness, towards an approach that incorporates the whole person as well as their family, community and the social, cultural and environmental determinants that affect wellbeing.
This holistic method is something that has always been understood and enacted in healthcare by First Peoples, not just in Australia, but around the world.
These comments say it best for me ...
It’s amazing that more peoples of the world are not calling to disrupt the scientific construct of modern medicine in favour of a return to that practiced by their Stone Age ancestors. Aboriginal people form less than 3% of our population; feel free to design a bespoke health service if you wish. Just don’t ask the 97% to pay.
If we jail naturopaths for offering misleading information about cures, why should we deliberately go out of our way to allow faith-based medicine?
Is this what's really urgently needed, or rather should it be a focus on preventative healthcare by promoting healthy lifestyles, such as abstaining from alcohol, tobacco, maintaining a healthy diet and exercising regularly?
As from the stats I've seen, Indingenous people in this country are sadly over-represented in the sorts of (often preventable) health problems which are directly related to lifestyle rather than inadequate healthcare systems.
I would very much like to offer a counterargument, except that there is no argument to counter. The text reads as a repetitive collection of buzzwords like 'disruption,' 'colonialism,' 'holistic,' followed by a vague claim that something is wrong with western medicine, but we are never told what exactly is wrong. What exactly is Western medicine missing? Does chemo not kill cancer in indigenous Australians? Does heart surgery not work for clogged arteries? Insulin not helping with diabetes? What about vaccines? In fact, this sounds an awful lot like the kind of thing we hear from anti-vaxers, except that we are expected to have an additional respect for it because of the author's background. Well, no thank you.
On average, health care expenditure was $7,995 per Indigenous Australian, compared with $5,437 per non-Indigenous Australian—thus $1.47 was spent on health care per Indigenous person for every $1.00 spent per non-Indigenous person
Between 2008–09 and 2010–11, government health expenditure for Indigenous people increased by $847 per person (adjusted for inflation)—an average annual growth rate of 6.1%. The corresponding growth rate for non-Indigenous people was 2.6%.
Now, before anyone might complain, I feel that the numbers must speak for themselves.
But, you're asking that on top of what is already rightly allocated..then someone with a burning leaf can then claim they cure the ill. If that's the case and traditional medicine of any nation is 'the way to go' why did people get sick?
Alternative medicine works for many people and I am certainly pro holistic methods in many cases and drug companies do benefit from people being sick but if you want to cure your ills with holistic medicine do it on your own dime like the rest of us have to. Why should the taxpayer have to fund it when, if they choose the same path, they have to pay for it themselves?"Problem is, when people decide they're going to treat their medical problems "holistically" and treat their spiritual or cultural beliefs as the equal (or better) of modern medicine, they often end up dropping dead. "
Proving Darwin right. Intelligence is a survival trait.
