REFLECTION JOURNAL 3 HLPE1540.

By Claudia Svilans
In my third journal, I have decided to focus on parts of tutorials which I did not yet understand enough.
This includes: Politics and Indigenous health. These two aspects have an influential role in society on
educating others.

Politics can influence a persons view on what they promote their party to improve in society. For
example, in todays lesson, we compared the two main Australian political parties (Labor and Liberal)
on how their party has promised to consider more benefits towards health. This idea was useful
towards my learning because I have little knowledge of politics, and this is my first-year voting in the
election later this year. In our group tables, we researched on which party we would prefer/ support
under the guidelines they propose. From other statements that I saw on the ALP website (for example,
Malcom Turnbull is making cuts towards university funding), I decided that Labors values are the ones
that I would want to follow.

One reason why I support Labor over Liberal from a health view is because Liberal wants to change
the Medicare system. My family and I, all have a joint Medicare card which helps us save money
because we receive rebates back after paying for health essentials for ourselves, i.e. optometry,
buying monthly contacts. Currently, Medicare is referred to as a public Healthcare system. The Liberal
party, however, are trying to privatize Medicare without consulting its members or experts working
in that facility. Malcom Turnbull intends to cut $650 million from Medicare in the 2017 budget review;
the cuts will come from: pathology tests and scans (Labor, 2017). These include: MRI, X-Rays, CAT
scans, and mammograms. Furthermore, if members need this type of treatment in the future, then it
must come out of their own pockets. This can force them to pay thousands of dollars up-front which
they might not have. This will strongly impact those who are classified as less fortunate and need
constant attention from sickness. Another way Turnbull intends to change Health for his own partys
benefit is by increasing the cost of prescription medicine. This increase can charge people up to $5
more per script to receive the medicine they need to get better. These Health movements reflect
Turnbulls intentions of taxing people for income, but also by cutting funds in health so that it can
contribute to other services.

Politics rely heavily on where funding goes towards. I remember in this workshop, which our tutor
mentioned, that there was a high amount of funding going towards a Proton Beam ray-gun from the
Liberals party. I decided to research more closely into this to understand this concept better. I found
that Malcom Turnbull made a statement on funding towards Health which said, We are also funding
the latest in advanced medical research technology with $68 million towards Australias first Proton
Beam therapy facility at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute here in Adelaide
(Turbull, 2017). Another website included more details on the Proton Beam therapy facility, which
outlines that this facility is specifically for children with inoperable brain cancers. This treatment is a
new innovative way to treat cancers, and reduce the damage towards healthy tissue (Shepherd, 2017).
The article also includes a quote by Senator Xenophon, which says, This will save the lives of many
thousands of Australians and prolong the lives of so many more,. Therefore, this Proton Beam facility
is positive in helping researchers find a successful way in preventing cancer in the future. However,
the construction of this new facility can also be negative because the $68 million could be divided into
funding more components of Health. Politics have the power of improving or disadvantaging society.

From this information, it identified the importance to me of having distinct types of Health-care
because they are suited for a type of person, and gives them the right benefits that they would prefer.
For example, private health-care can be defined as more expensive, but it specifically is valuable to a
portion of Australians. This reminded me of one of my peers who uses private health-care because
she is more sceptical to illness, therefore, she needs more private health-care assists. Germov (2014)
discusses in the textbook how having Tiers can help the way, particularly Private health-care, works.
If an individual makes a low-income sum, then they will receive an insurance rebate percentage that
is high, and a surcharge which is low (Germov, 2014). The Tiers are an effective way of calculating how
private health-care can benefit an individual or family based on their income. This will have differences
between private health-care services to attract business.

Indigenous health is still lower compared to Non-Indigenous people, and this is evident through their
life expectancy rate. Germov (2014) defines life expectancy as a measurement, the average number
of years a person of a given age and sex can expect to live, if current age-sex specific death rates
continue to apply throughout his or her lifetime. In the Health textbook, life expectancies for all
Australian males and females were approximately at 78.7 and 82.6 years (Germov, 2014). This is
compared to Indigenous males and females whose life expectancies are on average 11.5 and 9.7 years
lower. Therefore, health facilities and services should tend to Indigenous individuals and families more
because of the statistics that show the standard of living is poor.

This tutorial helped me understand the background and history of Indigenous people which
contributes to their health. Although their past experiences included suffering and intense persecution
which average Australians cannot relate to, the information helped me learn about their history. The
Stolen Generation affected many who are still recovering from the heavy trauma today. The
separation of Aboriginal families and the removal of their children had estimated statistics in the years
of 1910-70, that between one in three and one in ten children were forcibly removed from the
community (Germov, Second Opinion , 2014). This made me picture my own experience from primary
school from discussing The Stolen Generation; we watched the film the Rabbit-proof fence when I
was in about second-grade. It was hard for me to understand as a child, but from being older now, it
makes me reflect on how this has affected Indigenous peoples health. Mental and physical well-being
would be the main targets on reducing Indigenous health because of their history. This is due to the
destruction that is still left today by Europeans.

From these types of experiences, this led to many Indigenous Australians to turn to alcohol
consumption and other unhealthy actions (Germov, 2014). This was due to a way of dealing with
psychological and physical pain of a morbid past.

I have significantly developed my understanding of health through concepts such as: politics and
Indigenous health. This knowledge will be essential to me as a practitioner because I can then pass
this on in an appropriate manner.

Bibliography
Germov, J. (2014). Second Opinion . South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Labor. (2017). ITS OUR MEDICARE. Retrieved from save medicare:

http://www.savemedicare.org.au/find-out-more/

Shepherd, T. (2017, May 5). Budget 2017: $68m revolutionary brain cancer facility to be installed at
SAHMRI 2 in Adelaide. Retrieved from Hearld Sun:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/federal-budget/budget-2017-68m-
revolutionary-brain-cancer-facility-to-be-installed-at-sahmri-2-in-adelaide/news-
story/8e0f199c84d690a56d75f81ac2ac0b43
Turbull, M. (2017, May 16). ADDRESS TO THE SA DIVISION LIBERAL PARTY BUDGET LUNCH. Retrieved
from Prime Minister of Australia: https://www.pm.gov.au/media/2017-05-16/address-sa-
division-liberal-party-budget-lunch