Government Addresses Aboriginal Health Care Issues

It is a diverse country and nothing brings this issue more into focus than the living standards of the Aboriginal community. The media and social scientists alike have often noted the disparities in life quality for such communities in the Northern Territory – from access to commercial venues, banks, and Internet communication, to health care, Aboriginal groups are currently underprivileged. Cultural issues aside, equal access to health care is one of the inalienable human rights of modern societies. As such, the recent decision announced by Australia’s federal government, which grants $13.2 million to a Northern Territory organization comes in useful. The recipient NGO designs outreach programs for children’s health care in Aboriginal communities. They also provide training courses for medical and educational professionals, as well as professional support.

The program in question has been devised for the long-term, explains the minister for Indigenous Health, Warren Snowdon. It aims to help indigenous parents educate their children from an early age, while also promoting literacy. A family support component is also included, as are free classes in child nutrition. According to the minister for Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, the program will be implemented throughout the course of the following ten years and will entail a total investment of $73.5 million. It will be piloted on ten aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory this year, with five more to be included in the program from July 2017. This outreach strategy also allows community members to provide feedback and become involved in the selection of the child rearing services that they receive.

Even though Australia is an economically developed country, the gap between its non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal communities persists. This gap was taken into account and planned for within the recently disclosed 2013-2014 federal budget. The Australian Government’s Indigenous Health Strategy includes many admirable goals, many of them with a focus on health: improving life expectancy, overall health conditions, and life expectancy for children. Several not-for-profit organizations were summoned for the implementation of this long-term plan and many of them focus on bridging the cultural gap between indigenous and non-indigenous inhabitants. One of the first stages of the program is raising awareness about essential health-related issues, such as nutrition, health conditions, and attitudes toward health care.

Chronic disease is a significant cause of death and deterioration within aboriginal communities – and it’s no wonder, when one takes a look at current health care stats. In the very long term, both the government and the organizations involved are hoping that this outreach strategy will bring private health insurance to the communities in the Northern Territory. For the short-term, however, they aim to address more pressing issues. There are only 140 aboriginal doctors in Australia (according to 2010 reports). 928 more are needed, because, even if 60 per cent of aboriginal patients report going to general practitioners outside their communities, cultural differences usually make them feel unwelcome and elicit memories of racism. Doctors aside, the total number of medical professionals of aboriginal ethnicity in Australia only amounted to 1.000 in 2010 – 500 less than needed to cover the needs of all the communities.

Furthermore, access to healthcare per se is precarious: only 20 per cent had access to doctors every day in 2006. 41 per cent could only visit a doctor once in every one or two weeks, while 3 per cent had to make do with once a month or less. 25 per cent of aboriginals living in remote communities also lived over 100 kilometers away from the closest medical facility. And, for what it’s worth, in 2006 there were already 140 organizations hard at work, trying to provide remote aboriginal communities with access to health care. Yet only 50 per cent of the clinics ran by these organizations were properly staffed.