How Health Services Can Provide Culturally Safe Care

Kildea (2006) says that maternity care based on principles of Western models of health care have not been able to improve maternal or perinatal outcomes and Molly Wardaguga, an Aboriginal health worker and respected elder, states that inappropriate maternity care is responsible for the social dysfunction and loss of culture often seen in Indigenous communities (Kildea, 2006). Until this day Indigenous women have not had their voices heard or their knowledge recognised (Kildea, 2006). In order to improve maternal and perinatal health outcomes for Indigenous Australians holistic components from the Indigenous definition of health must be incorporated into maternity care and connection to country must be respected (Kildea, 2006). Maternity†¦show more content†¦Durey and Thompson (2012) explain that the act of balancing quality care and organisation efficiency means that minimal resources are allocated to providing and improving appropriate Indigenous health care. Unfortunate ly, this is a factor in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women avoiding culturally unsafe care and aggravates the vicious cycle that leads to poor maternal and perinatal outcomes (Kruske, Kildea Barclay, 2006). One of the recommendations made by the ‘Close the Gap’ campaign involves increasing the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health care workers (Kelly et al., 2014). It is thought that doing this will encourage more Indigenous Australians to attend health care services and also promote cultural safety therefore improving health outcomes for the Indigenous population (Kelly et al., 2014; Kildea, Kruske, Barclay Tracy, 2010). Increasing the number of trained Indigenous health care professionals will require the support of institutions such as universities, health services and organisations responsible for the distribution of scholarship funds (Kelly et al., 2014; Sherwood, 2013; Kildea, Kruske, Barclay Tracy, 2010). Specifically, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women must be encouraged and supported by universities to gain midwifery degrees

Juli A Multi Sensory Learner That Demonstrates Average...

Julia is a 16-year-old eleventh-grade student in the Half Hollow Hills High School West. She is educated in general education classes with daily Resource Room support. Her current classification is Learning Disabled. Julia has received special education services since the 2nd grade and was classified in elementary school. Her current test accommodations include extended time (1.5), a flexible small group with limited distractions for the state test, and to start testing in class and finish in the testing room. As per IEP, Program Modification includes special seating arrangements. Previous reports indicate that Julia met all developmental milestones with normal age expectations. She lives at home with her parents and two older siblings.†¦show more content†¦She displayed appropriate verbal skills for her age and expressed herself when asked questions. Julia s motivation was high on most tasks administered. In addition, on difficult items, Julia often self-corrected her answers on some of the tasks. She maintained attention throughout the testing session. She often took an appropriate amount of time to respond to a few tasks. Throughout the testing, Julia demonstrated good verbal strategies as she often repeated the question to herself before answering. She did not request any breaks between tasks. She was observed as anxious (e.g. frequent adjusting in the chair) on harder items and her test anxiety seems to have compromised her overall IQ performance. However overall, given the good testing conditions and Julia’s effort, the current results ap pear to be an accurate estimate of her cognitive ability. Julia’s cognitive abilities were assessed through the use of Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scales, 4th Edition (WAIS-IV). The areas of cognitive processing ability measured include crystallized intelligence, short-term memory, visual-spatial processing, reasoning ability, and processing speed. The subtests measure different cognitive processing abilities and when combined together they form four index scores: Verbal Comprehension, Perceptual Reasoning, Working Memory and Processing Speed which all together make up the Full-Scale IQ score. Julia obtained a Standard Score of 82 (12th

Food Regulations in the Usa free essay sample

Everyone has heard the stories about mad cow disease and other food-borne diseases coming into the United States from countries such as United Kingdom and China. Besides that locally, foodborne illnesses are among the top of deaths within the United States. Cause of these deaths, most could be prevented if better rules and regulations were in place federally and locally in the United States. In this paper I will be discussing insight on how the US Government can improve the effectiveness of state and local food safety programs. Food safety responsibilities at the state and local levels reside in too many agencies (health, agricultural, industry, etc. ) With all of these agencies it is hard for all of them to cooperate together when detecting and reporting said incidences to the federal level. Without an effort to build a comprehensive national regulation that cover the three basic elements of prevention, detection, and rapid response. When it comes to the area of surveillance, there is a lack in the communication chain between federal agencies, state, and local health agencies. A good example of this lack of surveillance was back in 2008, when Federal Drug Administration found traces of melamine in infant milk products. However, the FDA concluded melamine or cyanuric acid alone, at or below 1 part per million in infant formula do not raise public health concerns in babies. (2008 Chinese milk scandal) Melamine is a toxic chemical that can be harmful if swallowed, inhaled, or absorbed through the skin. According to FDA scientists, melamine can be absorbed into the blood stream forming clots that can cause kidneys to malfunction. United States FDA’s limit was put at 0. 63 mg, but was later reduced to 0. 63 mg daily. The World Health Organization’s food safety director estimated that the amount of melamine a person could stand per day without incurring a bigger health risk, the tolerable daily intake (TDI), was 0. 2 mg per kg of body mass (â€Å"Melamine†) To eliminate such risks from entering into the United States, FDA needs to improve on monitoring and/or inspection of the food safety practices of foreign food producers and suppliers. A solution to this surveillance problem would be improved communications and collaboration between federal agencies, state, and local health jurisdictions involved in food safety surveillance. As well as promote access to information from multiple passive foodborne outbreak surveillance databases by federal, state, and local health jurisdictions such as Pulse-Net. With better surveillances put into place, the next step would to concentrate on the inspection and regulation phases. There was an article written in 1956 (Eat, drink, amp; be wary, 1956) that explains how FDA does not regulate everything the same. The article goes on to explain about how Florida oranges and the additives that are used and how three of the dyes were deemed â€Å"highly toxic. It also states that if the FDA were to make new laws, which can take years for them to be passed. Another way is to mandate uniformity in product dating so consumers and regulators can differentiate between production dates, â€Å"sell by† dates, â€Å"use by† dates, and if dates are based on food safety concerns or product freshness considerations. Woteki amp; Kineman wrote an article entitled â€Å"Challenges and approaches to reducing foodborne illness† how the science of foodborne illnesses are accelerating faster than laws that can protects against said illnesses. While American consumers benefit from one of the world’s safest food supplies, the existing framework is a patchwork of laws and regulations that are frequently inconsistent and lag far behind current scientific knowledge of the risks posed by foodborne pathogens and toxic chemicals. (Woteki, Kineman, 2003) With proper regulations now in place, working on proper inspection procedures would be the next step to ensure safer food being imported and exported within the United States. Federal government needs to support continued development of a uniformed food safety inspection program for all state and local health jurisdictions and encourage its adoption through federal funding. The FDA has been working on this by developing Model Retail Food Standards. (NEHA, 2011) However, to improve the regulations that are needed the FDA have areas for improvement; such as encouraging (but not mandate) more uniformity in regulatory codes nationwide. Another solution in the inspection process would be to have a secure database where all the proper documents to be accessible by user-defined personnel. There was an incident where a local health department had to file a request for a copy of the most recent inspection of a food manufacturing plant from a certain federal agency. By the time that request was processed, six months had passed and the inspection was outdated and useless. (NEHA, 2011) Overall, the United States does ok in the prevention and detection of severe cases of foodborne illnesses. However, I believe that the FDA should do a better job in communicating with state and local government to better prevent and detect said type illnesses. Again some ways that could happen is to try to get a uniformed code of regulations across nationally. Now by doing this I am not saying we will prevent foodborne illnesses totally but we, as a nation, would be better off to indicate and be able to take the corrective actions needed.