Equitable Care for Indigenous People: every health service can do it

Problem and its context: Indigenous peoples in many countries suffer poorer health and poorer access to good healthcare than their non-Indigenous counterparts. In Australia, enduring barriers to good health and good healthcare remain, in spite of long-standing policy priorities. These barriers include the ongoing reality of colonisation, and silence about its implications. People working in and using the health system need to relate across cultures, but they approach this endeavour witha complex mixture of goodwill, defensiveness, guilt and anxiety. Methods: We analysed what is known in Australia about differentials in access to good care, and the underlying factors that entrench them, as well as strategies for developing mainstream competence in care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients and communities. Analysis and Conclusions: The available evidence of differentials in access and quality that are not explained by clinical or demographic variables is unequivocal. Official policy needs to be implemented at the system and organisation level through operational policies, programs and protocols, and through relationships with Aboriginal healthcare providers and community organisations. The concept of racism anxiety provides a way of making one important barrier visible, and moving beyond it can enable people of goodwill to ‘see’ where change is needed, and to see themselves as part of the solution. It is time to get beyond the barriers and attend to practical improvements in care, focused on the care system, not simply on the skills and knowledge of individuals within it. Abbreviations: ACCHO – Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation; CC – Cultural Competence