CNA157: Reflective Essay - Health Care to CALD Patients - Assessment Answer

Providing Culturally Safe Health Care to CALD Patients

Introduction

Being a health care provider it is important for me to carry out my duties in healthcare organization and provide best possible services to patients. The chosen diverse group to provide culturally safe health care are the CALD people. CALD stands for Culturally And Linguistically Diverse and people from CALD backgrounds are the ones who are from Australia’s non – indigenous type of cultural groups excluding the majority from Anglo – Celtic group (English speaking). (Carersaustralia.com.au, 2016) In this report, I will be critically analysing the barriers or difficulties faced by CALD group of people in Australia and reflect on self-attitude, values and beliefs and assess them both positively and negatively. Also, I will be reflecting on the culturally safe health care practices which I will follow in order to provide best health care services to my chosen CALD group in Australia. Lastly, the report will cover my self-assessment as a nurse or a health care provider and my positive contribution towards healthcare industry.

Barriers to Health Care Access and good care experienced by CALD group

Following are some of the significant barriers to healthcare access experienced by the chosen CALD group in Australia:

• Needs of CALD group are often overlooked and are not properly supported or addressed systematically by popular health care service providers
• Health care services and other settings are considered to be poor with lack of competences, experiences, cultural sensitivity, racism etc (Principe, 2015)
• It is been clearly noted that people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds have very limited access to mental health services
• CALD people show clear reluctance to voluntarily acquire access to both the community – based services on mental health and mainstream hospitals
• The main reasons for barriers to timely access the services related to mental health are – stigma, poor communication and lack of necessary information regarding the mental health services and mental illness in accessible and appropriate formats
• Observation clearly shows that strong impact of the stigma of mental illness is the important barrier to effective and timely health care services. (Health.gov.au, 2006)

Following are the good care services experienced by my chosen CALD group in Australia:

• Few people from my CALD group experienced some good health care services that included providing them with a comfortable environment to rest
• Some health carers took assistance from Interpreters in order to clearly understand their needs and communicate with CALD patients
• Some carers kept patience throughout the treatment period and made sure to clarify and understand the needs of patients
• Racism was not practiced and CALD patients were treated with priority and thus, positive body language (for instance - good eye contact) and empathy was showed throughout the process of treatment (Adebayo, Durey and Slack-Smith, 2016)

Reflection on self-attitude, values and belief and its assessment

Being a responsible health care provider, my attitude towards the CALD group is quite friendly. Having conducted an in – depth research on the barriers, issues or difficulties faced by the CALD group in Australia, I developed a sense of responsibility towards them. Being an extrovert, I mingle really well with new people irrespective of their origin, gender and age and thus, I realized that I am best suitable to take care of CALD group in Australia. Thus, I decided to research more on the problems faced by the CALD group so as to train myself to provide best possible health care services to them. Upon research, I found that most of the CALD people reside in Australia and are mostly aged people and majority of them suffer from mental health issues. Thus, I choose to become a health care practitioner in providing services related to mental health among the Culturally and Linguistically Diverse group of people in Australia.

My personal Values include respecting every individual I come across without judging their past, origin, gender, age etc. I manage to understand and communicate with different people and help them in treatment. Thus, my values and belief towards CALD group is very positive. I believe that I can understand and adopt their culture in order to treat them and respect their beliefs.

Positive Impact Assessment of my attitude:

• Friendly
• Good communication skills
• Good knowledge
• Put maximum efforts in individual patient care

Negative Impact Assessment of my attitude:

• Slightly impatient in situations where there are no effective results even after putting maximum efforts

Culturally safe health care practices

Following is the description of some of the culturally safe health care practices that I will undertake with individual patients of chosen CALD group:

• I will ensure to study the critical background of each patient personally in order to understand the root cause of their mental illness
• I will ensure to interact with my patient effectively and make them comfortable to share their feelings and problems so that I can treat them effectively (Nguyen HT, 2008)
• I will also ensure to provide advocacy support to my CALD patients within the health care system and thus, overcome the barriers of culture and language
• Also, I will ensure to provide support and effective guidance to my patients who are unable or unaware to access services
• Also, knowledge and cultural competence of an individual’s history is very significant in order to sensitively handle emergency cases of trauma and torture patients (Nguyen HT, 2008)
• In order to effectively communicate with the CALD patients with mental illness, I will ensure to take help of professional Interpreters when needed. Also, Interpreters involved in such cases will be strictly informed to maintain patient’s critical information and condition (Gammon and Gunarathne, 2007)
• The role of families is significant in most of the CALD groups and thus, I will ensure to approach to my patient’s family to carry out effective treatment. Because, as per my study, it is the family which is of high priority and focus in case of many interventions
• Getting support from the family can prove to be much effective and stronger in case of CALD patients suffering from mental illness. Hence, I will ensure to convince my patient’s family to involve and help them in the process of treatment (Gammon and Gunarathne, 2007)

Self assessment as a nurse or health care provider and my contribution

Being a responsible citizen and health care provider, I do understand my responsibilities and duties towards taking care of patients of culturally and linguistically diverse group. I ensured to conduct research on the nature of CALD group, the issues, barriers faced by them in accessing health care services and several other facts related to them. Thus, I believe that I can manage to handle CALD group who are suffering from mental illness. I will ensure to communicate with them effectively (either individually or with assistance of an Interpreter) and understand their background, culture and spirituality and seek assistance and support from their families to treat them effectively. Keeping patience throughout the process of treatment is very essential and I also, ensure to maintain confidentiality of each patient’s case study and only discuss with my senior supervisors or with my co -workers when necessary.