news| news issues

please report any broken links or other errors to › want to come back later?  click here to add this page to your bookmarks / favourites

	No Condom -- No Way! 1990 Aboriginal HIV/AIDS poster - click for larger version (260kb)
	What can I do? Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTaR) is running the Healing Hands Indigenous Health Rights Campaign Sign the Indigenous Health Rights Statement, and email or post to ANTaR (instructions on statement). You can also download a PDF version. Distribute the Statement to your friends and networks. Find out more about the issues and ways in which you can help by requesting an Indigenous Health Campaign Kit or by downloading the resources from this website. Contact your state and federal politicians and urge them to make the Indigenous health crisis a priority. A comprehensive National Strategic Framework for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health was endorsed by all Australian Governments in July last year. These same Governments need to be urged to implement their strategy. Download the Indigenous Health Rights Statement (PDF, 31K).
	How bad is it? Overall, Australians enjoy amongst the highest standards of health and life expectancy in the world, but compared with other Australians, Indigenous people have: life expectancy is 20 years less; infant mortality rate is about twice as high; a median age at death of 53 years, 25 years less than for the population as a whole; in some regions the median age at death was 47 years. Life expectancy for Indigenous Australians is worse than in many developing countries. Indigenous children are hospitalised more often and suffer from high rates of respiratory, eye and intestinal infections - 8% to over 50% — The World Health Organization regards a rate of 4% as a ‘massive public health problem’ In later life Aboriginal people are hospitalised at about twice the rate of non-Indigenous people. Compared with the population as a whole: the rate of rheumatic heart disease is 6-8 times higher; rates of diseases of the circulatory system are about three times higher; respiratory disease is four times more common.
	In current prices, average health expenditures per person rose by nearly 15% from 1998-99 to 2000-2001 and the growth in 2001-2002 would have approximated 6% at least. But it occurred mainly in private hospital use, expensive PBS drugs and high level aged care, the three categories of service which Indigenous people use least. Australian Medical Association Expenditures on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health (PDF, 1.5mb)

Health

There is a hidden health emergency in Australia that demands our immediate attention.

Indigenous people now have a life expectancy more than twenty years less than other Australians, and Indigenous infants are dying at the same rate as babies in some of the most impoverished developing countries.

"Twenty years is just short of the standard measure of a generation. It represents a tragic loss and a waste, for Indigenous people and for Australia as a whole."
Gary Banks, Chairman, Productivity Commission, November 2003

This situation affects Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people everywhere in Australia. It is not confined just to remote communities. Nor is it simply a ‘medical’ issue - it relates to the underlying causes of ill health – nutrition, employment, housing, public and environmental health, and the lack of affordable food for remote Australians.

Statement by The Fred Hollows Foundation

The following thoroughly researched and accessible briefing papers from The Fred Hollows Foundation provide accurate, relevant information on the current status of Indigenous health and its underlying causes:

• The Health Emergency [800kb]
• Profile of Indigenous population and health status [780kb]
• Where does the money go? Funding for Indigenous Health [600kb]
• The social determinants of health [600kb]
• Housing and health hardware [700kb]
• Literacy, education and health [630kb]
• Prevention is better than cure – Comprehensive Primary Health Care [630kb]
• Nutrition and health: The Fred Hollows Foundation program [1270kb]

Clippings:

• UN to hear Aboriginal plight
  28 April 2004 - Aboriginal health workers will tell the world just how bad indigenous health services are in Australia at a meeting with the United Nations next month. The chairman of the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO) Tony McCartney said the group would raise its concerns about indigenous health during a major presentation to a UN sub-committee in May.
• Study: Australian Aborigines die younger than other indigenous populations
  Apr 27, 2004 - Associated Press - Australian Aborigines are dying much younger than indigenous people in the United States, Canada and New Zealand, a study by Canada's University of Western Ontario revealed Tuesday.
• Mainstreaming still unworkable
  17 April 2004 - EDITORIAL - Even with special focused services - such as Aboriginal medical services - designed to deal with some of the practical consequences of the gap in such consumption, net per capita assistance from government falls well below Australian averages, even the averages of comfortable middle- class areas such as, say, John Howard's own Sydney seat of Benelong.
• Suffer The Children
  April 14, 2004 - Muriel Cadd couldn't believe it had happened again. As head of Victoria's only ­Aboriginal child protection agency, she was used to bad news. But when she got a telephone call last October alerting her that another two-year-old boy, Daniel Thomas, was missing, suspected murdered, she was devastated. Ten months earlier, she had taken a similar call when Mildura toddler Joedan Andrews vanished from a settlement just over the Victorian border in NSW.
• Indigenous health 'below third world standards'
  March 30, 2004 - Key health standards for indigenous Australians were below those of poor countries such as Sudan, Sierra Leone and Nepal, the Fred Hollows Foundation said today. The medical aid group said Aboriginal health standards were not improving and, in some areas, declining, despite years of national prosperity.
• Information briefings about 'Indigenous Health in Australia'
  30 March 2004 - The Fred Hollows Foundation - There is a hidden health emergency in Australia that demands our immediate attention. Indigenous people now have a life expectancy more than twenty years less than other Australians, and Indigenous infants are dying at the same rate as babies in some of the most impoverished developing countries.
• Amanda Vanstone: The political quick fix is not the solution to Aboriginal problems
  February 20, 2004 - The problems facing indigenous Australia are many and varied. And they are very long term. They did not happen overnight and they will not be solved quickly. There is no magic wand. I don't say that to thwart the hopes of indigenous Australians who want improvements and want them soon. Nor do I say it as an excuse for turning a blind eye to current events.
  
  
  
• Greater fairness needed in opening up Indigenous medical knowledge
  15 July 2003 - In part, Aboriginal reluctance to share traditional knowledge is a reaction to the wider injustices they have been subject to and to their desire to retain cultural identity. Critics, however, say moves to lock up useful knowledge denies it to those who are suffering.
• Indigenous Health - the Growing Crisis
  July 2003 - ANTaR NSW - Champion swimmer and former Young Australian of the Year, Ian Thorpe, has joined the growing ranks of prominent people and health experts pleading for attention to the crisis in Indigenous health. Thorpe recently returned from a visit to remote communities in the Northern Territory, and said he was shocked by the living conditions and poor health of his fellow Australians.
• Darren Godwell - Give white patronising heave-ho
  27 June 2003 - Indigenous affairs are killing my people. Women and children are copping the brunt of it. Kids are killing themselves because of sexual abuse and because they see little hope for a better future. Yet black men and women struggle to get real help to confront their demons. And the best John Howard's Government can offer is to hand out more welfare payments.
• Aboriginal Politics Hits Crisis in Australia
  18 June 2003 - Reuters - A crisis in Australia's key indigenous group is spilling over into other areas of black politics, hampering Aborigines from tackling horrifying rates of disease, abuse and neglect, a new report said on Wednesday.
• Professor Mick Dodson -11 June 2003
  11 June 2003 - Professor Mick Dodson Address to the National Press Club on Violence Dysfunction Aboriginality.
• We can cut black death rate: expert
  26 March 2003 - The death rate among indigenous Australians could be cut by as much as 30 per cent in 10 years with an adequate level of investment in health services, ANU Professor Ian Ring said yesterday.
• Aboriginal treatment is racism: Professor Stanley
  22 March 2003 - The appalling health and living conditions endured by many indigenous Australians was a denial of their human rights, says Australian of the Year Fiona Stanley
• There are plenty of medical problems, but only one real crisis
  20 March 2003 - Fixing the disgraceful state of indigenous health conditions would benefit us all in the long-term, writes Professor Jim Hyde.
• Public Report Card 2003 - Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Health Time for Action
  6 March, 2003 - Australian Medical Association - One Year after the release of the AMA's first report card on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health not much has changed. The 2003 AMA Report Card presents new information about the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
  
  
• Fears for health of Aborigine children
  26 December, 2002 - BBC - Doctors in Australia's rugged Northern Territory say the number of malnourished Aboriginal children is rising sharply. Figures released by the Royal Darwin Hospital show a 25% increase in those diagnosed with malnutrition and diarrhoea in the past three years.
• Aboriginal health ills still bleak
  December 9 2002 - There was little or no improvement in Aboriginals' health between 1990 and 2000, according to a report in today's Medical Journal of Australia. The Australian Medical Association study found that death rates for Aboriginals were three times higher than the rest of the population.
• Death by Neglect
  11 November 2002 - A decade after a royal commission to stop Aboriginal deaths in custody, Edward Russell's story is proof not enough has changed. Edward Russell lies in a grave without a headstone. A rough wooden cross and framed photograph suggest an unremarkable life and death.
• A New Deal? Indigenous development and the politics of recovery
  October 4 2002 - Dr Charles Perkins Memorial Oration. Delivered By Marcia Langton.
  The crisis of underdevelopment that catches up each new generation of Aboriginal people is a global phenomenon that constantly transforms itself along with those it sweeps up, and is not one that is easily amenable to ‘pulling the economic levers’. Aboriginal people are enjoined with hundreds of millions of people around the world in their poverty, hunger and short life spans.
• Aboriginal welfare still complicated
  August 9, 2002 - ATSIC money is not supposed to be the prime provider of basic services ... but, because all too often other levels of government are not fulfilling their responsibilities, ATSIC has to pay the bill and then face accusations of ineffective use of the money.
• Aboriginal abuse inquiry tabled
  August 1, 2002 A landmark report into child sex abuse in Aboriginal communities was handed to West Australian Premier Geoff Gallop yesterday after a six-month inquiry.
• 500 more doctors and 650 more nurses needed
  June 25 2002 - Australia needs another 500 doctors and 650 nurses to tackle the woeful ill-health among indigenous people, according to a draft report to the federal Department of Health.
• While ideologues bicker, indigenous Australians die
  May 24, 2002 -In 1996, the Howard Government came to power trumpeting its commitment to free speech, especially in the area of indigenous affairs. Last week, Aboriginal social justice commissioner William Jonas accused it of seeking to "shut down debate" about reconciliation.
• Aboriginal health 'scandalous'
  24 May 2002 - BBC - A new report by the main doctors' group in Australia says the country has failed to improve the health of its 400,000 Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.
• Finding the future: three approaches to the problems in Aboriginal communities
  15 May, 2002 - By Hal Wootten, former Royal Commissioner into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. It is not for us or our governments to pre-empt the myriad choices that open to Aboriginals as they seek their futures, whether as individuals or as members of communities. There are enough constraints imposed by the real world, where choices are always limited by scarce resources, by the rights and interests of others, by law, by the needs of one’s family, by the trade-offs in every decision that is made.
• Lack of education 'deadly'
  Apr 29, 2002 - Poor education rather than crime and poverty is killing Aborigines. A new report has found higher education places taken by Aborigines are disappearing at a rate of 3000 a year.
• Self-determination: distraction or solution?
  April 2, 2002 - Is the push for self-determination a distraction from the real needs of indigenous communities? Can independence provide improved quality of life for indigenous Australians?
• Black communities in a mess, warns Aboriginal minister
  Mar 8, 2002 - It is almost impossible to find a functional Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory, the first indigenous minister to serve in the Territory's Parliament said yesterday.
  
  
  
• Aborigine deaths linked to poverty
  12 Dec 2001 - Scotsman - Australian Aborigines are dying 25 years younger than white Australians and about 15 years before indigenous people in New Zealand and the United States, according to the findings of a recent study.
• Secret abuse shame of Aboriginals women
  22 April 2001 -Independent (UK) - "They tell us that it's none of our business, it's their cultural way," said one white domestic violence counsellor. "But the elders have told me that these things were never part of their culture. We have to get rid of the romantic view of the Aboriginal way of life, because they don't believe it themselves. It's just white do-gooders being politically correct."
• Money that's black and white and spent all over
  Mar 16, 2001 - The dollars may appear black, but there are plenty of "grey" areas. Not all native title dollars are being used to Aboriginal advantage. They are being used to help those opposing native title claims. They are being used to help other landholders and the nation deal with the fallout of a High Court decision - the landmark Mabo finding in 1992 that native title exists.
• Black Australia: a picture of despair, rage and violence
  Feb 16, 2001 - Aboriginal people are 45 times more likely than other Australians to be victims of domestic violence, while their risk of being murdered is eight times greater, the most comprehensive research into indigenous community violence reveals.
• UN reports finds Australian aborigines disadvantaged
  Sep 1, 2000 - BBC - A United Nations report says that Australia's Aboriginal people continue to be disadvantaged in employment, housing, health and education.
• Australia's treatment of Aborigines 'appalling'
  Sep 2000 -Survival International (UK) - As athletes and spectators arrive in Sydney from all over the world, Survival today condemned Australia's treatment of Aborigines as 'appalling'.
• UN censures treatment of aborigines
  Jul 31, 2000 - Guardian Unlimited - Australia has come under renewed fire from the United Nations for the way it treats its Aboriginal population.
• Australia attacked over Aborigine treatment, The UN says Australia must redress years of injustice
  Jul 21, 2000 - BBC - Australia has come under attack for its treatment of Aborigines at a UN Human Rights Committee. The committee, which is due to publish its official recommendations next week, expressed concern at the marginalisation and discrimination of Aborigines in Australian society.
• Aborigines suffer social deprivation
  Mar 2, 1999 - The Telegraph (UK) - In the Gibson Desert an Aborigine tribe is restoring its pride at a time when other groups of Australia's indigenous people are suffering vast social disadvantage.

 External sites:

• ANTaR Healing Hands Indigenous Health Rights Campaign
  
  
  
• Australian Indigenous Health InfoNet
• Indigenous drug and alcohol database
• Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet 
  Contributing to improving the health of Australia's Indigenous people by making relevant, high quality information easily accessible.
• Aboriginal Health Au 
  Clinical articles, health links, and a mailing list.
• The Indigenous Online Network
  Has several databases that are regularly updated with information and resources of interest and use to Indigenous people in the higher education sector and to people interested in Indigenous issues. Includes: Announcements, Current News and Events; Employment and Research Opportunities; Scholarships; Educational Resources; Contacts; Conferences, and; Discussion Groups.
  
  
  
  
  
• National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation
  The National Aboriginal Community-Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO) is the peak Aboriginal health body in Australia. It has a membership of 120 Aboriginal community-controlled health services throughout Australia, which operate in urban, rural and remote areas. Aboriginal communities around Australia have been establishing such services since the 1970s in response to a range of barriers inhibiting Aboriginal access to mainstream primary health care services, and as an expression of self-determination.
• Kimberley Aboriginal Medical Services Council 
  A health resource body for a group of independent Aboriginal community controlled health services.
• WA Aboriginal Disability Network
• Apunipima Cape York Health Council
• Culture Training Manual for Medical Workers in Aboriginal Communities,
  Medicine Au
• Danila Dilba Health Service
• Derbarl Yerrigan Health Service
• Nunkuwarrin Yunti
• Port Lincoln Aboriginal Health Service
• Wirringa Baiya
• Danila Dilba Health Service 
  Aiming to provide culturally appropriate primary health care services of the highest quality to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of the greater Darwin area.
  
• Kalgoorlie Bega Garnbirringu Health Service, Western Australia 
  Providing a range of medical and social health services including general health, health promotion, sexual health program, health worker training courses and sobering up services.
• Young Nunga Health 
  Information about health issues that effect young Nungas (Aboriginal youth) living in Murray Bridge.
• Indigenous Health Cultural Exchange Group 
  A network of Indigenous health and medical degree students.
• Australian Indigenous Doctors Association
• Mt Theo - Yuendumu Substance Misuse
• Congress of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nurses 
  Recommendations to develop strategies for the recruitment and retention of Indigenous peoples in nursing.
• First National Indigenous Male Health Convention
• Yooroang Garang
  School of Indigenous Health Studies, University of Sydney, facilitating improvements in indigenous health and well being through innovation and excellence in teaching and research.
• Indigenous Psychological Services
• Australian Government Directory - Indigenous Organisations Central Australian Aboriginal Congress
• Katherine West Regional Health Board
• Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance N.T.
• The Aboriginal and Islander Community Health Service Brisbane
• Kalwun Health Service (QLD)
• Queensland Aboriginal Islander Health Forum
• Walgett Aboriginal Medical Service Co-Op
• Darah Gibinj Aboriginal Medical Service (NSW)
• The Ord Valley Aboriginal Health Service
• Aboriginal Health Council of SA
  
  
  
  
  
• Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal and Tropical Health 
  Provide a cross cultural framework for strategic research into Aboriginal and tropical health. Publications, research projects, and education and training programs described.
• Royal Australian College of General Practitioners
  • Indigenous Health Education and Resources Guide
• Australian Medical Association (AMA)
  • AMA, Public Report Card 2003 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Health: Time for Action
• Doctors' Reform Society of Australia
• Indigenous Health Cultural Exchange Group
• The Fred Hollows Foundation
• ABC Western Australia - Health and Reconciliation: Ted Wilkes and Fiona Stanley - The Institute of Child Health is carrying out a survey of Aboriginal children and adolescents to improve our understanding of what they need to develop in healthy ways. Professor Fiona Stanley and Ted Wilkes talk about the importance of reconciliation in relation to health. And we even get to hear Ted sing! Audio in RealMedia format
• Indigenous Health Program,
  University of Queensland (UQ)
• Working with Indigenous Peoples with Disability,
  Centre for Remote Health
• Eye Health in A&TSI Communities
  Ophthalmology, University of Melbourne
• Kokotinna
  Flinders University
• Office of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health
  Federal Government
• A&TSI Health in Queensland,
  HealthInfoNet
• A&TSI Health Special Interest Group,
  Public Health Association (PHA)
• A&TSI Nutrition,
  Student Dietitian WWW Gateway
• Aboriginal Health,
  NT Health
• Koori Health in Victoria
  Department of Human Services, Victoria
• Koori Health Research & Community Development Unit
  VicHealth
• Victorian Aboriginal Health Service
• Regional Aboriginal Health Team, SA
  
  
  
  
  
• Violence in Indigenous communities
  Indigenous Australians are by far over represented as both victims and perpetrators in all forms of violent crime in Australia. The cost of this to their communities is horrific. Addressing such violence is not quickly nor easily solved. This report summarises past research and consultations on issues relating to the prevention and reduction of violence in Indigenous communities. Promising approaches, and basic principles for effective intervention, are identified.
  • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women's Taskforce on Violence Report (PDF)
  • Moving On: Thinking about violence on Aboriginal communities - NACCHO
• National Indigenous Family Violence Grants Programme
• Putting the picture together (PDF)
  Inquiry into response by Government agencies to Complaints of Family Violence and Child Abuse in Aboriginal Communities, Department of Premier and Cabinet (Western Australia), 2002
• Aboriginal health: why is reconciliation necessary?
• Black Search for Meaning: Aboriginal Suicide
• Hospital statistics relating to Indigenous people, Occasional Paper, 1997-98
• Self-assessed health status of Indigenous Australians, Occasional Paper, 1994.
• The Health and Welfare of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples
  R W Edwards & Richard Madden, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2001
• Indigenous mothers and their babies - health statistics, 1994-96
  National Perinatal Statistics Unit, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 1999
• National Indigenous Gay & Transgender Consultation Report and Sexual Health Strategy
• Anwernekenhe Reports
  Reports from the Indigenous Gay men and Sistergirl conferences
• HIV/AIDS and Us Mob
  Information resource for Indigenous people living with HIV.
• Investigating indicators for measuring the health and social impact of sport and recreation programs in Indigenous communities (PDF 1.7Mb)
  Research commissioned by the ASC to help improve services offered under the Indigenous Sports Program by state and territory governments and mainstream sporting organisations has been released in a report prepared by the Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal and Tropical Health.
• Measuring aboriginal well-being in four countries (Word document)
  An application of the UNDP’s human development index to aboriginal people in Canada, the United States, New Zealand, and Australia

 please report any broken links or other errors to  

|| click to go to the top of this page