Moving Forward Together in Aboriginal Women's Health: - Theses ...

Moving Forward TogetherJanet KellyAddressing issuesThe complexities and difficulties of health care provisionThis Collaboration Area also highlighted the difficulty health professionalsfaced in trying to meet complex and different client needs with limitedresources. Health professionals discussed struggling to prioritisecomprehensive primary health care when so many clients were already acutelyill and requiring immediate intervention. They had difficulty prioritising awell-being program when clinic clients were requiring immediatehospitalisation. This mirrors wider dilemmas in the health sector regardingwhich services are adequately resourced, and which are not. Even though thestate Generational Health Review (2003b) promotes a commitment to Healthfor All and the comprehensive primary health care, projects such as theAboriginal Neighbourhood House are changed to become an AboriginalOutreach Health Service under Medicare funding.There are conflicting interpretations of policies and funding streams such asthe APHCAP policy and funding. Some managers interpreted the policy aspromoting comprehensive as well as primary heath care, while othersinterpreted a focus on clinical services with health professionals bringing acomprehensive view of health to clinical care (Mg I3). These quite differentand changing interpretations made it difficult for health professionals andclients determine what kind of heath care was being provided, and to whatextent it could address wider health issues linked to the impact of colonisation.Recognition of the impact of colonisation, discrimination and exclusionAll of the health professionals and staff members involved in thisCollaboration Area expressed a deep understanding of the impact ofcolonisation, discrimination and exclusion on Aboriginal women’s health andwell-being, and the need to positively address these in health care provision.Aboriginal co-researchers spoke from their own experiences as Aboriginalwomen experiencing and observing such impact every day. Non-Aboriginalstaff members at the Aboriginal Outreach Health Service were also deeplyaware, having worked alongside peers and clients for many years.Colonisation, discrimination and exclusion were discussed as a fact, rather than258