NMIH205 Cultural Competence in Health Care Practice

Introduction

A cultural competency is defined as the ability of the person to interact with another cultural group that includes majorly four components such as awareness of own culture, attitude regarding differences, knowledge of different cultural groups and the cross-cultural skills. It is a fundamental framework to establish in the health care centre’s for providing such medical care to the different cultural group of patients. In this assignment, the case of refugee arrived family from a war country is described, who are non-English speaking and their culture is totally different from Hindu culture. The importance of cultural competency as being a Hindu nurse plays a vital role that can reduce many of the health problems and discrimination in the world as well.

Identification of own cultural values and privileges

As being from the Hindu culture in health care centres of Australia, it is my responsibility to provide much needed and desired medical services to the patients even with the different cultural groups (Truong, et al. 2014). I belong from the joint family where every time I have learned that the guest of our country or home is very special and we should always make them comfortable through providing them with such required services. It is my duty to serve each and every patient equally without any discrimination and give them such required services and goods so that they can easily get recover from the disease. Cultural competency comprises of the belief of an individual for performing equally and enhances the relationship with other cultural groups so that the environment might be healthy and cheerful where everyone can share their feelings and opinions without any fear (Lecca, et al. 2014). Mental distress level should also be mitigating through providing such equal treatment to all patients accordingly. There are numerous different culture presents in the world and all they have their own personal belief according to their rituals and values respectively. As Hinduism is the religion of beliefs, values, rituals and culture and my personal values are to provide such equal treatment to the guests so that they can feel comfortable. As per the statement of Hindu nation that the guests are like god and their care is our primary concern. So I always treat my patients equally with love and joy, so that they can get recover soon and share their feelings easily (Mareno and Hart, 2014).

Self-reflection and cultural values

I also took training for cultural competency, so there would be no chance to any discrimination and each and every patient can be served equally. The NHMRC is the national medical health service provider, and I worked here since long. I need some improvement in my plan, which is important in future. Time management, team working, communication such as verbal or written, some IT skills are more viable that can enhance my personality and helps me out to help the patients with the understanding of their respective feelings and beliefs as well (Horevitz, et al. 2013). I take training with video lectures so that easily I can learn different languages and know the culture of different places accordingly. Through these methodologies, I can easily treat them according to their culture and belief (Cushman, et al. 2015). As being from the Hindu culture, I am very kind of nature and treated the patients with very polite nature. This helps me to provide such required and desired services to the patients accordingly. I also managed my team members, so that they also work regarding to the cultural competencies and works without any discrimination such as race, gender, colour, ethnicity, nationality, citizenship etc. self- reflection is foremost essential part to evaluate personal weak links and strength also, which helps to improve in more perfect manner and further development and growth also enhanced (Kelly, et al. 2016). By knowing strength and weaknesses of own, I can easily figure out the weak links and works according to overcome these weaknesses and recover them with strengths respectively.

Problems of refugee family-

In this case, the refugee family from Afghanistan came to Australia with their wife and two children. In Afghanistan, the war has begun and the family escapes from there. They all are mentally disturbed and pressurized. Their children also have been suffering from mental disorders and other diseases, which must be treated well. I always feel proud to welcome and preserve a multicultural group of people. I easily understand the feelings of patients and their family because I also from the joint family with a number of people, so I have the better idea to understand the feelings of different people and then provide them with such required services as well.

This Afghani family has been suffered from several issues such as they are now mentally paranoid because they saw war and their children are currently mentally disturbed. This refugee family also does not know the English language, which is more difficult to them to share their feelings with anyone in Australia. It is my responsibility to understand them and make them comfortable with providing them such clinical care (Isaacson, 2014). I also worked for teaching such keywords, so that they can easily survive in Australia and at least share their thoughts and feelings as well.

The family is suffering from numerous problems at one time. They are coming from the place of war, which impacted their lives negatively and causes depression and stress. Depression causes high blood pressure, hypertension, insomnia etc. these are some basic problems that they are been suffered from and one of the major issues is that they do not speak English (National Institutes of Health, 2015). They cannot easily talk with other people and tell them their needs and desire accordingly because of language problems. They now feel insecure and panic all the time, which needs to be pampered. Somehow, it is my responsibility to understand their culture and give them such required service. I also should work on increasing the awareness among my team members. Discrimination should be avoided, so each and every cultural group of patients can feel more secure and comfortable. It helps to grow and develop the corporation accordingly. I have provided them such clinical care and by understanding their feeling, I also feel more nervous but I must keep myself strong for providing them such comfort zone and health care that can help them to reduce their problems and issues as well (Sales, et al. 2013).

Services available for refugees in Australia

The government of Australia also equipped to tackle the health-related problems of people that comprise several problems (Norman-Major and Gooden, 2014). To help the refugees in Australia, there are various services are provided by the government for serving the people specially women’s and kids. It involves cultural care of them by which all the people served equally and health care centres also works accordingly to make them feel comfortable, safe and secure as well.

Strength based approach

The strength-based approach in this field is defined as the development assessment program for cultural competencies (Kohn-Wood and Hooper, 2014). I have recognized the full significance of strength-based approach in this work. I believe in identifying the weaknesses of mine and my team members on the regular basis so that we can easily overcome these weak points and use my strength to provide such medical and clinical care to the refugees, which helps them to make feel better and comfortable and easily they can survive in Australia.

Cultural awareness is concerning to knowing every diverse culture, values, beliefs and ethics. It is the major aim of the nurses or health care centre’s to understand the cultural values of others and how dissimilar culture can interact with each other (Falender, et al. 2014). It has been also impacted the overall corporation and keep the image of a country in the positive way, where no one can feel discriminate rather they feel safe and secure as well. The healthcare centre’s should behave in a perfect manner with another cultural group of patients, so that they also feel safe and secure while sharing their values and opinions accordingly, which helps them to mitigate the problems and get recover them from the diseases accordingly (Kohlbry, 2016). As it is mentioned that the family of Afghanistan, who is the refugee and non-English speaking are suffering from many things; initially they are mental paranoid that have the bad impact in their own lifestyle. It is the major responsibility of the health care centers and hospitals to provide them such equal treatment and understand their feelings as well.

As being from the Hinduism culture, where my personal beliefs and values are totally different from the English culture, I always give first priority to providing care to someone who needs (Montenery, et al. 2013). I have recognized many things of mine with some analysis such as I followed the structure of SWOT and make the personal plan as well, which helps me to identify the strength, weakness, threats and opportunities as well. By these links, I have started work according to the need and my personal development. I have also started to learn different foreign languages and the culture of different places (Ambrose, et al. 2013). It helps me to better understand the values of an individual. In my family, I have always learned one thing that is the priority of work and as belong from joint family I have better experience to know about different needs of different people and their nature accordingly. I can easily figure out the different nature of a person and then provide them with such required services respectively. Throughout, this strength-based approach includes many forces and working groups who are responsible to increase awareness among the people for the cultural competency (Eldredge, et al. 2016). It presents opportunities for the corporation and an individual as well for their development and growth.

Importance of cultural competency

The cultural competency is recognized as the approach for improving the health provision regarding racial, ethnic and other minority cultural groups of people, which major aim to mitigate the racial health disparities among the people. It is actually a broad concept that can be used in the improvement and describing a variety of interventions for enhancing accessibility and effectiveness of health services as well (Yang, et al. 2013). It identifies the needs or desire of different cultural groups of patients and some of the linguistic barriers among them affect the health care delivery, which needs to be improved in a manner. The major target for improvement is the non-English speaking and immigrant people who have very limited exposure as compared to western culture. It plays the viable role in healthcare sectors for providing such medically equal treatment to the patients of dissimilar cultural groups, so that they can also speak up freely and get the advantage of clinical care as well. This concept of cultural competencies and morphology barriers in social health continuously developed through from last decades (Robey, et al. 2013.). It has been adopting a wide variety of ideas, experiences and some of the demographical changes, which reflect the image of health care centers and improves the effectiveness of services accordingly.

It has the wide range of importance for providing such culturally responsive care and maintains coordination among the people. Awareness is also important for the development of competency because this service or treatment cannot be offered to those who do not coordinate and understands the different cultural values, beliefs, customs and languages etc. the practitioners and healthcare service providers should be effective and polite in nature, so that they can easily establish the empathy with families and youth of different culture community (Ndiwane, et al. 2014). They must develop the strategic plans and then works according to it for providing such care to the people and meet their needs as well. As linguistic barrier is the major issue so that there must be some of the people who know all the languages and help them to understand their feelings and tell other service providers. It helps to provide the required services accordingly. Cultural competency is mainly designed to the immigrant and refugees (Davison, 2016). It focuses on the diverse culture and helps them to develop in their own way and reduces their problems as well. By improving the cultural competency, the services can easily deliver to the patients and immigrant people in a more effective way towards their culture or belief. It can be helpful in enhancing the quality of health services and its outcome.

Conclusion

The aforementioned essay depicted that the cultural competency has its own importance in healthcare sectors for improving the services and health outcomes in diversified cultural groups. The major issue of non-English and immigrant people are described who are not able to understand the western norms. It is developed for providing such responsive clinical care to the different culture community so that they can also live their life freely and feels secure and safe as well. Furthermore, the strength-based approach and Hindu culture are also defined with the importance of cultural competency in healthcare sector.