Dispersed Throughout Australia’S Short History There Are

The health of Aboriginal people in Canada is both a tragedy and a crisis (Aboriginal Affairs and North Development Canada, 2010). Aboriginals have a higher rate of death among aboriginal babies, twice the national average, higher rate of Infectious diseases example gastrointestinal infections to tuberculosis, and chronic and degenerative diseases such as cancer and heart disease are affecting more aboriginal people than they once did (AANDC, 2010). Availability of important medical facility is not enough to accommodate the growing medical needs of Aboriginals. A socioeconomic and cultural issue also hinders the access of aboriginals to access health care in the community.

I argue that the ideologies behind The Assimilation Policy were evident since the first white settlers had arrived in 1788. Since first contact, Aboriginal people’s values, customs, beliefs and traditional way of life began to erode. From the 1850s onwards, Aboriginal people were forced onto reserves, and then into towns and cities in the mid 20th century . Many people feared that the ‘Australian’ culture was being affected by immigrants. Since the early 1900s, there had been a ‘White Australia’ policy and assimilation was expected upon arrival. However, Aboriginal people did not immigrate, so their policy, dictated by the Australian States and Commonwealth Government was known as The Policy of Assimilation. Assimilation policies were supported by racist assumptions and represented by settler nationalist imperatives . In the 1950s, assimilation policies for Aboriginal people were supported by the

Since the time of federation the Aboriginal people have been fighting for their rights through protests, strikes and the notorious ‘day of mourning’. However, over the last century the Australian federal government has generated policies which manage and restrained that of the Aboriginal people’s rights, citizenships and general protection. The Australian government policy that has had the most significant impact on indigenous Australians is the assimilation policy. The reasons behind this include the influences that the stolen generation has had on the indigenous Australians, their relegated rights and their entitlement to vote and the impact that the policy has had on the indigenous people of Australia.

At the turn of the twentieth century the systematic forced removal of Aboriginal children from their mothers, families and cultural heritage was commonplace. There were several reasons that the government and white society used to justify the separation but the prevailing ideology of nationalism and maintaining Australia for the ‘whites’ was the over-riding motivation and justification for their actions[1]. Progressive sciences such as anthropology espoused such theories as eugenics, miscegenation, biological absorption and assimilation which legitimated governmental policies relating to Aboriginal affairs[2]. It was

It is well studied by health authorities that the current health statistics of the Indigenous population today are clearly reflected on their health status, due to the impacts of the colonisation process. The relating problems associated with this have resulted in destructive families and communities. It is unquestionable that Indigenous Australians were adapted to the environment in which people lived and had control on every feature of their life during the colonisation period. According to ‘The Deplorable State of Aboriginal Ill Health, Chapter 1’ (2014), studies that show that numerous infectious diseases; such as, smallpox and the flu, were not present in the pre-invasion period. It is also shown that lifestyle diseases such as high BP, diabetes and heart diseases were not known to exist.

Assimilation policies existed in purpose of allowing the removal of Aboriginal children legal and believed as to be the right thing. The removal policy was managed by the Aborigines Protection Board. The Aborigines Protection Board was a government board established in 1909 with the power to remove children without parental consent and without a court order. These policies were especially detrimental to the Aborigines as a ‘government’ act prevented them with having authority over their own children and having no power in stopping the abducting of their children. Over causing a significant discrimination against the indigenous race, breeding hatred and inequality in Australian society, the implementation of these policies caused immense heartache and anguish for the Aboriginal parents for losing their children, the children of the Stolen Generation experiencing solitude and confusion for majority of their lives and the rest of society,

As health professionals, we must look beyond individual attributes of Indigenous Australians to gain a greater understanding and a possible explanation of why there are such high rates of ill health issues such as alcoholism, depression, abuse, shorter life expectancy and higher prevalence of diseases including diabetes, heart disease and obesity in our indigenous population. Looking at just the individual aspects and the biomedical health model, we don’t get the context of Aboriginal health. This is why we need to explore in further detail what events could have created such inequities in Aboriginal health. Other details that we should consider are the historical and cultural factors such as, ‘terra nullius’, dispossession and social

“The status of Indigenous health in contemporary Australia is a result of historic factors as well as contemporary socio-economic issues” (Hampton & Toombs, 2013, p. 1).

Throughout the early 20th century, the Australian public was led to believe that Aboriginal children were disadvantaged in their communities, and that there was a high risk of physical and sexual abuse. Aboriginal children were being removed in order to be exposed to ‘Anglo values’ and ‘work habits’ with a view to them being employed by colonial settlers, and to stop their parents, families and communities from passing on their culture, language and identity

This paper will examine the healthcare of Indigenous Australian peoples compared to non-indigenous Australians. The life expectancy gaps between the two are a cause for alarm when statistics show Indigenous Australian peoples die on average 17 years earlier than non-indigenous Australians (Dick 2017). This paper will examine the social determinants of health to explore these factors and what interventions are in place to improve health status and life expectancy gaps for equality. The Federal Government has seen the implementation of the Northern Territory Intervention and the Closing the Gap Initiative. This essay will examine these two strategies and discuss the effectiveness of both policies. It will explain the differences, similarities and look at the success so far to

As health professionals, we must look beyond individual attributes of Indigenous Australians to gain a greater understanding and a possible explanation of why there are such high rates of ill health issues such as alcoholism, depression, abuse, shorter life expectancy and higher prevalence of diseases including diabetes, heart disease and obesity in our indigenous population. Looking at just the individual aspects and the biomedical health model, we don’t get the context of Aboriginal health. This is why we need to explore in further detail what events could have created such inequities in Aboriginal health. Other details that we should consider are the historical and cultural factors such as, ‘terra nullius’, dispossession and social

The inequalities in today’s indigenous communities are still strongly evident. Heard, Khoo & Birrell (2009), argued that while there has been an attempt in narrowing the gap between Indigenous and non Indigenous Australians, a barrier still exists in appropriate health care reaching indigenous people. The Indigenous people believe, health is more than the individual, it is

64, Commonwealth of Australia 2011). Policy then moved towards more assimilationist strategies in which attempts were made to convert Aboriginal Australians into ‘responsible citizens’ (Gilbert 2005, Haebich 2000). The protectionist and assimilationist policies share the core values that Aboriginal culture is inferior and on its way to an ‘evolutionary end’ (Gilbert 2005, p. 64).

The aim of the assimilation policy was to remove Aboriginal children from their family and placed in white community so the Aboriginality would be forgotten.

Australians in the 1900s took part in a traumatic event that to this day affects many Indigenous communities, families and individuals. Assimilation was the ideology that Indigenous people and their heritage should be abandoned and that all indigenous Australians should conform to the White Australian’s way of life. This unrealistic ideology focused primarily on children as they were believed to be more adaptable to the white culture than their elders. Most of these children were ‘half casts’ and therefore were easier to assimilate as a result of their lighter skin colour. These children were taken from everything that was familiar to them, and forced to reject their family and heritage and wholly accept the white culture.