Garrie Gibson writes:
The Aboriginal community-controlled health sector, represented by its peak body NACCHO, is starting to assert its perspectives as a part of the national debate about the health and hospitals reform process.
There was virtually no mention of Aboriginal health or the community-controlled sector in the Federal Government’s major policy announcements on health and hospital reform, despite the fact that over half a million Australians receive comprehensive primary health care through such services around the country.
One of the greatest reform challenges for the Federal Government in the health sector is breaking down the silo mentality of departmental officers within the Department of Health & Ageing (DoHA).
There appears to be little coordination of effort across the variety of Government agencies and divisions within DoHA with the other non-Government providers of health care to ensure that the objectives set in the Close The Gap commitments of 2008 are fully realised.
The 151 Aboriginal community-controlled medical services (AMS) are funded by the Office of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Health (OATSIH) within DoHA.
A completely different division runs the Close The Gap programs and funding.
Meanwhile, the Government is proceeding with the introduction of Medicare Locals across the country and this reform is managed by another division within DoHA who appears to have little discussion with OATSIH on what Medicare Locals will mean for Aboriginal Medical services.
AMSs do not have any real information about where the future will lie for their delivery of comprehensive primary health care under this new structure.
Another agency which has a long history of delivering comprehensive primary health care to rural and remote communities, the Royal Flying Doctor Service, is similarly excluded from the process and has no idea what this new structure will mean for their service delivery to thousands of regional communities.
Meanwhile, the Federal Government is working with each State and Territory Government to establish new Local Hospital Networks to manage secondary health care and little consideration has been given to the role of AMSs in these Networks.
NACCHO and other Aboriginal Health organisations are gearing up for a national campaign in coming weeks to push for the establishment of a national coordinating body to break down these barriers and achieve much better consultation, planning, delivery and evaluation of health services across all Federal, State and non-Government agencies working in Aboriginal Health.
The National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Health Authority will develop the national health policies and strategies, set the key Performance Indicators to measure success and evaluate ongoing effort to ensure every dollar spent is achieving the goals of the Close The Gap Accord. This is an idea that has been around a while and its establishment is long overdue.
Expect to hear more of this in coming months.
• Garrie Gibson is general manager of the Canberra office of the communications consultancy, CPR.
Declarations:
CPR’s clients include NACCHO and the ACT Aboriginal health service, Winnunga Nimmityjah.
This article was first published in the CPR March e-newsletter.
My comment is in regard to the so-called ‘Health’ reforms and access to ‘Health’ care.
Firstly Aboriginal people (whom I have had the pleasure of working with for the past 6 years) have been misled by ‘white society’s’ Public Relations (PR) spin for a couple of hundred years now and if we (all people) are not careful it will be another couple.
The word ‘health’ is about our body’s natural system of maintenance, called our Immune system, which goes about it’s daily routine of repair and maintenance.
The term ‘Health’ is used by the PR mob to make it sound as though they are concerned with our well-being. The word they should be using is ‘Sickness’ (but this doesn’t have a ‘nice’ ring to it) and the reason for using that word is because doctors/clinics and hospitals ‘take care’ of our sickness, not our Health.
Our health issues are based on; what we eat, how much exercise we get, how much sunlight we get, and how many drugs/toxins/poisons (I’m talking about cigarettes, alcohol, cigarettes and gunja here, call them what you like) we take daily into our bodies.
Aboriginal ancestors rarely used alcohol or drugs (usually for ceremonial reasons), certainly not the abuse of them like Aboriginal people (and not only kids) do today …
It’s time Aboriginal spokespeople addressed the issues at hand.
1. Stop poisoning the body.
2. Eat a healthy balanced diet, get plenty of exercise and fresh air.
And it won’t be necessary to have to any ‘health services’ (except for accidents).
At this point I wish to state that I am for the establishment of drinking establishments for Aboriginal people, the same as for the rest of Australia, with the same rules applied to responsible drinking. Also the establishment of properly delivered, good fresh food supply to all communities especially remote ones.
Why aren’t there any Aboriginal ‘health’ centres for treatment of Aboriginal people (and others) using Aboriginal bush medicines? They were used for a few thousand years before and were very effective.
Why isn’t the collecting and usage of Bush medicines still taught in every Aboriginal community? And for that matter in schools and Universities.
Don’t fall for the spin that the medical system’s PR mob give you about their ‘magic pills’ to cure everything, it’s a myth.
Maintaining good health is all about respecting the body (our temple) and doing what is good for it … Be strong and Be healthy.
Mase.