Policies and Strategies of the Sydney Sexual Health Centers
This assignment intends to discuss the Australian organization namely ‘Sydney Sexual Health Centers’ will be identified as a facility or organization and then their policies related to plans and strategies of the international, national and state-based agendas will be aligned and provided. Besides this the population of the service provided and their priorities for the population will be discussed in this assignment. Finally, an evaluation of the service provision for the chosen population and the evidence-based interventions will be provided and a set of recommendations for the proper service delivery will also be highlighted in the assignment.
The organization Sydney Sexual Health Centers is the primary organization providing care for such major concerns as it is one of the oldest sexual and reproductive health related organizations, in the complete New South Wales (NSW). This organization provides care in every aspect such as providing testing, treatment and management for sexually transmitted diseases such as Chlamydia, gonorrhea, warts, hepatitis B, syphilis, hepatitis C, Thrush, bacterial vaginosis, urethritis, shigellosis, Molluscum, scabies and others (Sydney Sexual Health Centers 2018).
Sydney Sexual Health Centers aims to comply with several national and territorial healthcare policies and regulation so that lawful and strategically compliance care could be provided to the people requiring reproductive or sexual healthcare interventions (Sydney Sexual Health Centers 2018). As per the details of its policy and regulation compliance provided in the website, this service complies with two national policies such as Family Planning Alliance Australia and Multicultural Women’s Health Australia. Both of these national policies are run by the central government of Australia. On one hand, Family Planning and Alliance Australia is the national primal body for the sexual health and family planning organization, whereas, on the other hand, MWHA is the national arm of the multicultural center for cultural health in Australia, which is a policy for the immigrant women coming to Australia and to improve their health and wellbeing (Culturally diverse sexual health services 2018).
As per the details available in the website of the organization in discussion, there is a wide range of services that the facility provides to the population of Australia. The facility provides online as well as offline service to people in Australia and targets the young people as it has been seen that more than 50% of Australian younger generation is associated with internet everyday and hence, they act to remove the emergence of these issues in such population is Australia (Sydney Sexual Health Centers 2018). The organization provides facilities such as multilingual counseling and educational session related facility, to the young people associated with sex related work, MSM, or just curious about their sexual health for their benefit coming from other countries and unable to receive the health service due to social stigma, discrimination and other social issues.
Population of Service Provided and Priorities
Sexual health is one of the major concerns for the LGBTI community around the world (Cahill & Makadon 2014, p. 40). The facilities offered at SSH help the community by providing them with the opportunity to be able to share their thoughts regarding any physical mental and social issue and for this they provide a 8 hour customer support system 7 days a week. This helps the LGBTI people of Australia with a continuous support and they can use this portal as an educational portal and receive knowledge regarding sexual and reproductive diseases form the facility (Friedman et al. 2014, p. 310).
As per the data of Australian bureau of statistics, the rate of HIV in indigenous population in Australia is 33% whereas the rate of hepatitis C in the same population is 25% (Wilson et al. 2013, p. 23). This indicates the invasive rate of STIs within the indigenous community and the organization strives to provide education and awareness so as to teach preventive measures to combat STIs (Råssjö et al. 2013, p. 100).
People with disability and service for their sexual and reproductive health
For the people with disabilities, the organization provides guidelines and regulations so that they can understand the provision government is using to prevent such diseases in their community (Ahumuza et al. 2014, p. 59).
The Australian government has determined Reproduction and Sexual health as one of the major healthcare priorities with maternal healthcare in Australia (Singh, Darroch & Ashford 2014, p.122). As per the World Health Organization (2013) reproductive and sexual health is determined by appropriate physical, mental and social wellbeing and it also helps the people around the world to live a healthy sexual life, their stable and healthy reproductive ability and then they decide as per their freedom. Chandra-Mouli et al. (2015, p. 123) mentions that sexual and reproductive health is not related to the absence of disease however it also affected by the socio-economic political and cultural aspect. Therefore, it is the role of these holistic approaches to determine people and their reproductive and sexual health (Tornello, Riskind & Patterson 2014, p. 169). Besides these, there are several factors such as educational, health promotional, violence and prevention as well as mental health issues and hence to make people aware of the reproductive and sexual health, the Australian government has included in the gender equality related promotions so that the policies and regulations related to the reproductive and sexual health could be provided to all the citizens (Denno, Hoopes. & Chandra-Mouli 2015, p. 45).
Evaluation of Service Provision and Evidence-Based Interventions
The primary and priority population chosen for this healthcare promotional and intervention related organization is the lingual and culturally diverse young people who are unaware of the services and system of the Australian government. They are unable to contact these services because they are unable to reach out to healthcare facilities on account of social and cultural barriers. Guy et al. (2012, p. 39) mentions in his research article that majority of the aboriginal community are unaware of the sexual health and related information due to their social and mental state and fear of losing their identity while mingling with the other communities in Australia. The researchers included the study done in Australia Melbourne and associated aboriginals in order to promote awareness and tried to find out the level of information acquired by them in the context of sexually transmitted disease and in the process collected data from 23 focus groups with 14 interviews with 142 aboriginal people (Guy et al. 2012, p. 38). It was found that the young people especially female aboriginals have to face disadvantage related to sexual and reproductive health and due to which majority of the population suffer from sexually transmitted diseases and mental health issues (Tucker, Bien & Peeling 2013, p. 56). These services are important for the Australian population as the reach of these services is up to 132,000 people in Australia every month and more than 1.58 million people in Australian population (Sydney Sexual Health Centers 2018). Further, besides providing care to these wide arrays of people, the organization also raises funds for different public healthcare programs around the country and also seeks help from the national facility so that with the governmental aid such promotional and educational sessions could be conducted (Sydney Sexual Health Centers 2018).
It was also seen in the research article by Jeffries et al. (2013, p. 100), that healthcare professionals in such socially stigmatized condition are not able to understand the healthcare provisions and hence, are unable to help with proper medication to prevent the occurrence of sexually transmitted diseases due to discrimination, ignorance and societal stigma. As majority of the gay sex worker population belongs to Thai and Chinese population and they are unable to understand the language in which people are provided awareness details (Ahumuza et al. 2014, p. 59). Hence, it is another reason due to which these populations are unable to take effective measures to understand their responses to the emerging health condition. Besides, the social and lingual difference creates a mental difference between the population and the government and hence, they suffer from such health concern that affects their health as well. Therefore, healthcare promotional campaigns should focus on providing a lingual compliance healthcare intervention so that they can be provided with facilities provided by the government and their health could also become a major concern for the government and healthcare facilities in the country (Swain et al. 2013, p. 123).
Recommendations for Proper Service Delivery
The third evidence of evaluation is collected about the LGBTI community and people with disability. These are communities as per Hay et al. (2012, p. 128) the society thinks least about and discriminate due to their physical appearance and due to their sexual choices. This is because there are very few healthcare and wellbeing enhancement organizations that target these groups for their benefit and holistic wellbeing approach (World Health Organization 2016). Therefore, it is the duty of the healthcare facilities to understand their needs and address them to make these communities safer and provide answer to their questions. Besides these, providing detailed health analysis helps the communities to understand their physical and sexual limits and they can fulfill their demands as per their limitation in life (Guy et al. 2012, p. 59). The primary population of these services is young and discriminated people who are unable to share their health concerns to any healthcare facility and are unaware of the maximum healthcare facilities provided by the Australian government. To comply with the local as well as the state government facilities, the service is associated with Directorate of Planning, Population Health and Equity within South Eastern Sydney Local Health District as well as the service also complies with the state and territorial health policies and regulations (Sydney Sexual Health Centers 2018). For example, within New South Wales the policies are Family Planning NSW, Multicultural HIV and Hepatitis Services and others are provided within the organization, by treating managing and preventing such sexually transmitted disease. These policies are primarily for the upliftment and security of people irrespective of their culture, nationality and lingual preference and working culture and helps to provide them with their fundamental rights related too quality care.
Hence, it can be said that evaluation of the services offered would largely depend upon the level of awareness and education within the identified target population group. It should be noted here that there is a need to focus majorly on the awareness strategies and at the same time also incorporate a culturally safe way to deliver the education. Health care professionals should actively engage in planning campaigns so as to educate the indigenous people and the sex workers about the importance of sexual health and hygiene and the preventive strategies that could be undertaken so as to avoid risks associated with STIs.
The primary population of these services is young and discriminated people who are unable to share their health concerns to any healthcare facility and are unaware of the maximum healthcare facilities provided by the Australian government. To comply with the local as well as the state government facilities, the service is associated with Directorate of Planning, Population Health and Equity within South Eastern Sydney Local Health District as well as the service also complies with the state and territorial health policies and regulations (Sydney Sexual Health Centers 2018). For example, within New South Wales the policies are Family Planning NSW, Multicultural HIV and Hepatitis Services and others are provided within the organization, by treating managing and preventing such sexually transmitted disease. These policies are primarily for the upliftment and security of people irrespective of their culture, nationality and lingual preference and working culture and helps to provide them with their fundamental rights related too quality care. Hence, after evaluation of the organization that provide reproductive and sexual healthcare aids to people and its compliance with the national and state policies, it was determined that the facility complied with each of the territorial and national policies properly and then helped the people so that they can lead a normal and healthy sexual life (Sydney Sexual Health Centers 2018).
Despite the fact that the Sydney Sexual Health Centers provides detailed and complete health, social and mental help to the population affecting from or at the verge of reproductive or sexual health concerns, there are few recommendations, using which the acceptability and efficacy of the program could be increased (Oster et al. 2016, p. 129). The recommendations are as follows:
The first recommendations will be keeping the value of the complete program as per the health of the entire Australian community. Health is a fundamental right of human being and hence, it should not be compromised in any aspect (Gomez, Fuentes & Allina 2014, p. 26). It is the primary duty of the healthcare professionals working in that organization to comply the United Nations health related principles and uphold the vision of the organization so that while delivering services in the process, people can experience services related to its values and ideologies (Chandra-Mouli et al. 2015, p. 129).
Secondly, the organization should maintain equity, access and development related policies to provide care equally to every people in need. The organization should understand the health gap present in the Australian healthcare system and should work in the way to close such gaps by providing equal and concise opportunities to each individual in need (Igras et al. 2014, p. 56). It should be mentioned that inequalities in health care could be primary reason for the decrease in the growth and development of the services for sexual healthcare in Australia. Therefore, the society should change its mentality to provide equal opportunity to people of Australia without any specifications (Green & Murphy 2014, p. 760).
In addition to this improving the services such as inclusion of tele-health services would facilitate greater involvement of the priority population to avail health services. Also, digital awareness programs and offering complimentary HIV testing can help in identifying the infection at an initial stage and accordingly design an appropriate intervention. Further, educating the priority population about protected sex and the use of barriers such as condoms and dental dams can help in reducing the prevalence rate of STI to a considerable extent.
Conclusion
Sexual and reproductive health is one of the major concerns in healthcare facilities around the world due to its speedy infective nature and inability of the people to prevent. Australia also suffering from such disorders as majority of the LGBTI, indigenous, sex workers, as well as aboriginals who are unaware of the deteriorating nature of such healthcare diseases with population having lingual and cultural incompetence and hence it is not possible for the country to neglect the healthcare issues. However, the organization Sydney Sexual Health Centers helps such people in providing healthcare intervention and therefore, it is the organization that helps to provide culturally, lingual and policy related interventions to prevent such disease in the communities. In this assignment, the details of the organization, the service provided by the organization and then provided with the services provided to the priority populations. After that with the help of latest research evidences, the interventions used by healthcare organization was justified and then few recommendations were suggested so that using the organization can increase its competency with the policy and regulation related aspects of Australian healthcare.
References
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