Introduction
Cultural safety in healthcare is a critical principle as it builds patient trust in medical professionals, improves the quality of services and health outcomes. However, this practice is promoted and followed by different medical institutions to varying degrees and is part of their policies. This paper will propose the Cultural Safety position statement of Family Planning Victoria and the rationale for applying it as an example of such a practice in Australian healthcare.
The Cultural Safety Position Statement
Family Planning Victoria is an Australian organization that provides services for reproductive health. Family Planning Victoria clinics provide health services to help people conceive, carry, and deliver healthy children, support sexual health, and prevent sexually transmitted diseases (“Our clinics,” n.d.). In addition, the organization provides training for professionals, educational activities for schools, and communities. Family Planning Victoria believes that health literacy and sexuality education is one of the key elements for people’s reproductive health, since most diseases of the reproductive system are preventive and curable with timely treatment. Thus, Family Planning Victoria aims to enchase Cultural Safety for all patients in Australia regarding their race, gender, religious and ethical background by providing quality communication.
Family Planning Victoria affirms that all Australia residents have the right to receive quality services concerning their cultural beliefs. Family Planning Victoria also believes that a respectful and culturally safe environment contributes to the reproductive health literacy of patients and better health outcomes. Thus, Family Planning Victoria advocates mandatory education and training programs for medical professionals to improve their cultural competence and communication skills. The organization also engages the quality communication of healthcare providers with patients to provide the best treatment options and information to improve their health literacy, considering their cultural background. Family Planning Victoria confirms its intentions to provide quality care for all patients by creating a culturally safe environment with these measures.
The rationale underpinning the position statement
Communication is a critical element in the process of enhancing the health literacy of patients, which ensures better health outcomes for them. Patients get most of their knowledge of their health problems and ways of their treatment from doctors and nurses, since although general issues are covered in the literature, all patients have their own specific nuances. For this reason, quality communication is essential for the health care provider to assess the patient’s health literacy and offer him or her the necessary knowledge. One can note by considering Australia’s cultural diversity that this feature is especially required in the local environment, since in addition to various ethnic groups of migrants, it has a cultural minority of indigenous Australians. Hence, the concept of cultural competence is also crucial for healthcare professionals as they must understand and respect the cultural differences of patients (Purnell & Fenkl, 2019). However, as cultural competence is not a static quality, communication is a way of developing it and understanding patients’ needs (Curtis et al., 2019). Consequently, cultural competence, communication, and patient health literacy are interrelated and critical concepts for Cultural Safety in Australian healthcare settings.
Moreover, the specificity of Family Planning Victoria demonstrates that these elements are central to its Cultural Safety. Family Planning Victoria is an organization that provides services and educational resources about reproductive health. However, people are sensitive to the topic of sexual health and education, childbirth, and relationships between partners in a different way. The perception of these issues depends on the patients’ cultural characteristics. For example, Aboriginal women still often refuse abortion due to fear of stigma. (Farhart, 2019). For this reason, listening and understanding the needs of patients is essential to ensure Cultural Safety and provide the best quality of services.
In addition, communication is essential to increase the patient’s health awareness of safer sexual behavior. Most diseases of the reproductive system are avoidable and curable, but lack of knowledge prevents people from taking precautions. For this reason, cultural competence and communication are necessary to ensure Cultural Security in the dissemination of knowledge about a sensitive topic. Hence, communication and patient health literacy are essential for establishing Cultural Safety at Family Planning Victoria due to the specific health issues it covers.
Therefore, establishing high communication standards and a culturally safe environment for all patients will increase health awareness and bring positive results. Laverty et al. (2017) note that an increase in culturally safe clinical care for the indigenous population significantly contributes to their health improvement. A similar statement applies to other nations as well, since respect for the patient’s culture and his or her traditions builds trust in the healthcare professional. Thus, specific outcomes of Culture Safety at Firstly Family Planning Victoria will have resulted in the reproductive health area. Firstly, spreading knowledge about contraceptive methods and safer sexual behavior among young people and adults helps to reduce the level of sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies. Secondly, promoting knowledge about the need for regular checks and debunking the stigma around disorders of the reproductive system will reduce the development of complications and infertility and increase the birth rate of healthy children. In addition, culturally safe environments and communication promote a more informed approach to treatment among patients and increase its effectiveness. Consequently, establishing a culturally safe environment will enhance sexuality education and improve the reproductive health of the population.
However, there are some external and internal barriers to establishing Cultural Safety in Family Planning Victoria. External factors include language barriers and patient preferences about the gender of the doctor or nurse. The first aspect is related to the fact that indigenous peoples live in Australia, speaking 100 dialects, as well as migrants from other countries (Li, 2017). Consequently, these patients often need translators for quality communication and understanding, but their number in the clinic is limited. Ratna (2019) also noted that patients with language barriers are less likely satisfied with the quality of services. The same feature applies to gender, since quite often, the clinic cannot satisfy the request of patients about the preferred gender of the doctor and nurse, especially in urgent cases. Thus, the level of cultural safety for patients can be reduced. Internal barriers can be a lack of cultural competence or communication skills of health professionals and their cultural stereotypes. These disadvantages can be overcome through staff training; however, they will hinder quality communication in the early stages.
Conclusion
Therefore, the sensitivity of the topic of reproductive health and Australian society’s cultural diversity demonstrates the need for a culturally safe environment in Family Planning Victoria. The primary method to achieve this goal is to increase staff’s cultural competence and the quality of their communication with patients. This approach will build patient confidence in the health care system and convey important reproductive health messages to them in a culturally safe manner. Thus, adopting this practice will improve the health outcomes for the clinic patients.
References
Curtis, E., Jones, R., Tipene-Leach, D., Walker, C., Loring, B., Paine, S.-J., & Reid, R. (2019). Why cultural safety rather than cultural competency is required to achieve health equity: A literature review and recommended definition. International Journal for Equity in Health, 18(2019), 1-17.
Farhart, C. (2019). Abortion reform welcome but Indigenous women still concerned. NITV.
Laverty, M., McDermott, D., & Calma, T. (2017). Embedding cultural safety in Australia’s main health care standards. The Medical Journal of Australia, 207(1), 15-16. Web.
Li, J.-L. (2017). Cultural barriers lead to inequitable healthcare access for aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders. Chinese Nursing Research, 4(4), 207-210.
Our clinics (n.d.).
Purnell, L. D., & Fenkl, E. A. (2019). Handbook for culturally competent care. Springer.
Ratna H. (2019). The importance of effective communication in healthcare practice. Harvard Public Health Review, 23, 1-6.