Institutional racism: a discursive paper

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to provide discourse regarding awareness of institutional racism, from a non-Indigenous, Australian nursing student’s perspective. The discussion has a focus on the presence of institutional racism in the Australian healthcare system, its impact on the health of First Nation Peoples and a commitment to ensuring culturally safe practice. It will be argued that institutional racism is pervasive in healthcare as a consequence of three factors: exclusion of First Nations Peoples from governance roles, inherent racism impacting on socio-cultural treatment bias, and institutional racism influencing key relationships in healthcare delivery.

Keywords:

• institutional racism
• nursing
• Cultural Safety
• Indigenous health

Acknowledgements

My thanks to Doctor Tamara Power and Professor Rochelle Wynne for their feedback and guidance, and encouraging me to publish.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.