Answer

1. • 1.  Indigenous Communication Challenge Action Plan

         

        Group Chosen: Indigenous Australians

        Problem: Communication Gap in Healthcare

        Community Health Nursing Action Plan
        Target Group	Indigenous Australians
        Health Challenge	Communication Gap
        Promotion of Health	Health would be promoted by: Providing simpler explanations to concepts alien to Indigenous languages Interactive practice where indigenous people can interact with equipment Finding common ground between Western and indigenous understanding of diseases Recruiting more indigenous healthcare workers to improve trust
        Promotion of Independence	Independence can be promoted by: Practicing silence, a nod to indigenous common practice of pausing before answering Having interpreters who understand indigenous languages clearly Appreciating indigenous understanding of what causes diseases and body functions
        Evaluation of strategies	Evaluation of the strategies can be done by: Checking the trends for increased participation Surveying for changes in attitude to Western medicine Finding out the participation of indigenous people in communication channels.

         

        Discussion Post

        The group targeted with this healthcare action plan are the Indigenous people. These include those who live in the Northern territories, the Torres Islander Strait and the Aboriginal people among other Indigenous groups. Although limited literacy is not confined to the Indigenous people, it is greatly felt among Indigenous people. Consequently, the communication gap between the Indigenous people and the healthcare practitioners is a wide divide (Campbell et al., 2015). These speakers cannot understand codified medical concepts that are consistently used within the formal healthcare systems. They also fail to express the full extent of their symptoms and conditions to physicians and nurses, preventing them from getting the right remedies to the conditions that afflict them. In the end, these factors contribute to lower life expectancy

        Communication has a huge role to play within the healthcare set-up (Davy et al. 2016). Most of the evidence-based decisions that clinicians make in response to the patients’ conditions depend on how well they understood the patients’ signs and symptoms. This only happens through effective communication.  Decision-making also often revolves around the inclusion of the patient and the family of that patient within the decision-making process. This is in line with patient-centred care. For Indigenous language speakers, there is minimal chance that they would engage in decision-making in its fullest extent because of the linguistic barriers that exist. This then calls for a robust communication strategy to ensure that this section of the population can be brought into the healthcare participation for the improvement of healthcare outcomes.

        The strategies chosen for the promotion of health and independence would greatly help to improve the collaboration between the healthcare workers and the Indigenous patients and their families. It would also improve their participation in public health initiatives because they shall have understood the intention and benefits of such initiatives. Encouraging the explanation of alien concepts and terms associated with healthcare would help to demystify some misconceptions that the Indigenous people have about Western modes of treatment. Many Indigenous people have had their misgivings that information on healthcare is withheld deliberately. This founds the basis of the misconception about them that they do not for example want to experience pain. Improving communication removes such misconceptions, allowing for the Indigenous families to fully integrate into the healthcare system. In addition recruiting more Indigenous healthcare workers would encourage the Indigenous people to break their mistrust of the systems and find people they can express their deepest feelings for (Poroch et al, 2012). They would also be important in translation. Implementation of these strategies then would enable the community nurse to reach out to Indigenous populations, improving the quality of care afforded to them.

        The Indigenous people have sets of beliefs and practices with regard to health and the human well-being. Their belief in the role of witchcraft in sickness cannot be ignored. These beliefs must be understood and the rationale for the Western practices explained as well. For cultural reasons, Freeman et al. (2015) admits that the nurse would have to come to some form of common ground with the people of this Indigenous background. Because the Indigenous people value silence, there would be pauses while communicating to them the role of modern healthcare and the need for them to take part in it. This would send a message that what they value as a culture is valued within the healthcare system as well.

        The strategies described above would be evaluated by establishing the rate of participation in healthcare policy activities like vaccinations, disease control and public safety. When participation climbs, then the measures have worked. Limited participation still would signal the ineffectiveness of the strategies. Similarly, their enthusiasm to accept modern healthcare modes of treatment and equipment would also be a good indicator of the progress made by the tools used to promote health. Finally, how the Indigenous people participate in the established communication channels would also be used to gauge the effectiveness of the chosen interventions.

        Peer engagement

        1. How effective can translators be in solving the problem of communication and what challenges are associated with using them?
        2. What is the best way of reconciling the Indigenous belief in medicine and health with the modern methods of treatment and health policy?