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

Moving Forward TogetherJanet Kellyhistorical factors that underlay health disparities experienced by manyAboriginal people.Increased health professional and community involvement in policydecision making and implementationAboriginal community women and health professionals need to be supported tobecome more involved in policy decisions regarding health care programs andimplementation in order to prevent discordant health care. Respectfulconsultation followed by local collaborative and responsive action needs to beincorporated with national and state policies at an organisational level. Thiswas successfully implemented with non-Aboriginal women in the NationalWomen’s Health Program. Similar strategies could be combined with culturalsafe approaches to improve Aboriginal women’s and health professionals’involvement in policy decisions and implementation.Working togetherThe second aspect of improving Aboriginal women’s health and well beingidentified in this research, involved working together collaboratively to addressissues that were raised. Once knowledge had been respectfully shared anddiscussed, responsive action could be undertaken. In this research, we foundthat past and ongoing negative colonisation, discrimination, racism andexclusion experiences impacted on the way that Aboriginal and non-Aboriginalwomen and health providers could work together. Many Aboriginal womendiscussed needing time to get to know heath professionals in order to trustthem enough to discuss deep and underlying health issues.The changing emphasis occurring in the health sector from comprehensive toselective primary health care and back again was very confusing forcommunity Aboriginal women and health professionals alike. As discussedearlier, each model of heath care supported quite different expectations andexperiences of knowledge sharing and collaboration. For example, communitywomen were encouraged to attend comprehensive primary health careprograms weekly, but discouraged from attending selective primary careclinics so regularly. When the women’s greatest need involved seeking336