Health Care and Urban Aboriginals

In their research paper, " The Experience of Urban Aboriginals with Health Care Services In Canada: Implications of Social Work Practice," authors Ron Levin and Margot Herbert discuss the experiences of Urban Aboriginal Canadians as consumers of health care services, the lack of knowledge on the part of health care providers in treating such patients, and the implications for social work.

Some of the problems brought to the fore in their literature review centre around availability, accessibility and acceptability. While the issues of availability and accessibility often relate to the low socio-economic status of a large segment of the First Nations population, acceptability relates to the way in which health care services are offered. Treatment protocol can be incongruent with First Nations' cultural values and traditions and thus unacceptable. The lack of cultural knowledge on the part of health care providers translates into cultural insensitivity making communication between provider and patient problematic.

While this paper has more to say than what is presented here, it is with the implications for Social Workers that the authors conclude. Levin and Herbert state, "At a time when hospital social workers are attempting to create new roles and to acquire skills that will reinforce their usefulness in the hospital, there would be enormous “added value” if social workers could lead the way in bridging this very real gap in service for Aboriginal consumers" (p. 178).

I offer this brief summary as another perspective on the provisioning of health care and how health care information encompasses a vast range of issues.

Levin, Ron and Margot Herbert. " The Experience of Urban Aboriginals with Health Care Services In Canada: Implications of Social Work Practice." Social Work Visions from Around the Globe: Citizens, Methods and Approaches 39, no. 1/2 (2004) : 165 -179.