ESSAY WRITING

A MODEL ESSAY

TOPIC
Good health is the right of all Australians. How does the state of Aboriginal health care relate to that of non-Indigenous Australians? Why is this so and how can this situation be addressed so that there is parity across all segments of Australian society? Discuss.

“Good health is not just the physical wellbeing of an individual, but the social, emotional, and cultural wellbeing of the whole community in which each individual is able to achieve their full potential as a human being thereby bringing about the total wellbeing of their community”. (Anderson, 2000, para. 6)

If we take Anderson's view as the definition of good health, then the fact that an Indigenous baby raised in an Aboriginal community can expect to live 20 years less than other babies strongly indicates that the relative health status of Australia's Indigenous population is indeed much poorer than that of the rest of the Australian population (Merston, 1999, p.32). This is largely due to inadequate living conditions, lifestyle, lack of education and employment, and historical conditions. To improve the health status of Australia's Indigenous population, the government not only needs to allocate more funds to health services and the improvement of overall living conditions, but also to investigate ways in which health services can be offered to better reflect the cultural needs of this group.

Indigenous Australians suffer a higher amount of illness and die at a younger age than nonIndigenous Australians. Available data shows that life expectancies in 1992-94 for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men and women were 15 to 20 years below those of other Australians. This lower life expectancy is, in large part, a consequence of the mortality rates of Aboriginal people aged 25 to 54 years. These rates are five to seven times higher than for other