NSG2204 – Indigenous Culture and Health – Health Assignment Help

Assignment Task

BACKGROUND HISTORY – Arnhem land is an area of approximately 100,000 square kms in the north-eastern corner of the Northern Territory (NT) in Australia. It is home to the Yolngu people; the Indigenous custodians of the land who have lived there for at least 40,000 years and continue to engage in many traditional cultural practices2,3. . However, the health of the Yolngu and other Aboriginal people in this region is generally poor, with people experiencing a high burden of preventable ‘lifestyle’ diseases that are clearly linked to poverty, poor infrastructure and disadvantage. Babies from this region are often born underweight; children are at risk of infectious diseases, pneumonia, otitis media, skin diseases such as scabies and Rheumatic Heart Disease; and adults are at risk of chronic conditions such as diabetes and cardiac disease6,7 . Mae Roberts is a 45 year old Yolngu woman from Yirrkala in East Arnhem.

Yirrkala is a small, very remote town 900kms east of Darwin; where 13 clan groups speak different dialects of local language and live between Yirrkala and the surrounding homelands8 . According to the 2016 census, the population is 809 people who are mostly Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders (83.1%) and mostly young with a median age of 26 years9 . Low educational attainment and high unemployment are common, and most people live in family groups with children, in houses with an average of 6.6 people10. Mae Roberts grew up in a traditional household in Yirrkala; living in a two-bedroom house with her mother, two aunties, an uncle and four siblings. Mae speaks and understands a little bit of English, but her native language is Yol?u Matha. Mae’s mother was a stolen generation child who was taken from her home in Yirrkala at the age of 7 to work on a mission in Milingimbi some 1,434km away from Yirrkala. As a consequence, Mae’s mother was often sad, drank too much and sometimes wouldn’t leave the house for days. Mae doesn’t remember anything about her father.

CURRENT MEDICAL HISTORY – Mae has felt quite unwell lately, finding it harder and harder to get her ‘wind’, especially when she’s trying to ‘do things’ (dyspnoea worse on exertion). She has told her family that she is tired all the time with ‘short wind’, has ‘racing one’ in her chest and feels ‘a dizzy one’ in her head (extreme fatigue, palpitations and light-headedness). Mae has such ‘short wind’ and ‘racing one’ in her chest that she has to sit down most of the time. Mae sees the doctor at the local medical service who examines her, does an ECG and explains she needs to see a cardiologist urgently and needs to fly down to Royal Adelaide Hospital. Mae is alarmed (as is her family) as Adelaide is 3,332 km from Yirrkala, and ‘a long, long way off country’ as Mae says. Mae has never been ‘off country’ or away from family for any length of time, and is terrified about going to hospital so far away.

After much discussion Mae understands she is very unwell and the doctor organises to access funding for her sister to fly with her. Mae’s sister asks other family to ‘look after the kids’ because she and Mae usually care for the four grandchildren. Mae’s doctor commences her on Penicillin and tells her that this is to ‘prevent any further damage to her heart’.