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Parties urged to pledge more to Aboriginal health

Reporter: Suzanne Smith

4 October 2004 - TONY JONES: Economists have described this election campaign as the biggest orgy of promises and spending ever.

But, for the first time, neither party has given priority to perhaps the nation's most serious crisis - Aboriginal health.

Statistics reveal the life expectancy of Australian Aboriginal people is eight to 15 years less than indigenous people in Canada, the US and New Zealand.

And the AMA today called for an extra $450 million a year in Aboriginal health funding to counter the growing epidemic of preventable diseases, such as diabetes, rheumatic fever and kidney disease.

Suzanne Smith reports.

SUZANNE SMITH: Broome in north-western Australia looks like paradise.

But this stark beauty belies a tragedy on a massive scale - the desperate state of indigenous health.

Here at the Kimberley Aboriginal Medical Services Council, patients young and old have daily kidney dialysis.

Among them, Martina Hajinoor.

She says diabetes and kidney problems aren't diagnosed early enough because of a lack of doctors and nurses.

MARTINA HAJINOOR, PATIENT: There is lots of us that we don't even know.

I didn't even know I was a diabetic till I was told.

SUZANNE SMITH: Martina was at pains to point out she has always looked after her health.

She has never smoked or drank in her life and yet she is one of the many indigenous people with kidney disease.

Aborigines are four times more likely to die from kidney disease than the rest of the population.

DR RICHARD MURRAY, MEDICAL DIRECTOR, KIMBERLEY ABORIGINAL MEDICAL SERVICES COUNCIL: I can't underscore how much of an epidemic this is.

At the moment we've got around 70 people, Aboriginal people, from around the Kimberley region who are on one form or another of dialysis or replacement therapy.

We have around 40 of them in the unit here in Broome.

We have just finished a study looking at the numbers that are coming through our clinics and through our services and the estimate is that those figures will double in five years time.

That's just absolutely extraordinary.

SUZANNE SMITH: Doctors like Richard Murray express frustration at the lack of attention to Aboriginal health in this campaign.

Despite an avalanche of funding promises, neither leader mentioned indigenous health at their campaign launches and the Prime Minister had this response when asked why life expectancy rates hadn't improved at all under his Government.

TONY JONES, 'LATELINE': If you were an Aboriginal man, you would have outlived your life expectancy by now by eight years?

JOHN HOWARD, PRIME MINISTER: Yes, I understand that.

I also understand that there have been some measured improvements in the health indicators in relation to Aboriginals.

There is still a long way to go and it is a very slow process, but we are starting to see progress.

DR RICHARD MURRAY: Look, I think in many ways Aboriginal health is getting worse.

And it won't improve until crowding improves.

We need to build 70 houses a year to keep pace with the population growth just to tread water.

We are building around 50 houses a year.

Therefore, we are still going backwards.

SUZANNE SMITH: The Australian Medical Association agrees.

Its leaders held an emotional press conference today calling for $450 million extra funding per year.

BILL GLASSON, AMA PRESIDENT: But we do not have sustained funding.

What governments do is they give you a little pot of money and they say, "get that project going and by the way there is no money for it to continue."

So what happens, as Mark will tell you, is that they are on bended knees year after year trying to get sufficient funds to get a sustainable program into the future.

I plead with both Mark Latham and John Howard.

to put their hand on their heart and say, "we really care", and in a bipartisan way contribute an amount of money in an ongoing capacity that will make a difference to the health statistics of this group of people.

SUZANNE SMITH: But the Prime Minister believes one of the drivers of ill-health was the pursuit of a rights-based agenda by indigenous people over the last 30 years.

JOHN HOWARD: We ought to be listening a lot more to those who believe that self-responsibility and personal empowerment in Aboriginal communities and the end of the welfare mentality is essential before we bring about a profound change for the better.

SUZANNE SMITH: For indigenous leader Pat Dodson, the issues of rights and indigenous disadvantage are inextricably linked to health outcomes.

PAT DODSON, ABORIGINAL LEADER: I get a bit annoyed about that because I see people every day of the week in these small communities - Balgo, Malumbuma, Mulum, all of these places in the Kimberley - where people are trying desperately to come to grips with the trauma and the tension and the social dislocation that's in their communities.

I haven't seen John Howard out on any of these places.

SUZANNE SMITH: For Dodson, too, the reduction in Native title rights has caused social and psychological distress.

And talk of taking personal responsibility for your health denies the reality of poverty in many communities.

PAT DODSON: It's impossible to ask people to lift themselves out of poverty.

It is impossible to lift yourself up if you are ill, It's impossible to lift yourself up if you're being daily faced with the hopelessness of ever having any recognition of the fact that you are indigenous people in this country.

And that is what Howard and his government has to address.

And certainly the Opposition, if they become government, they have to address it as well.

SUZANNE SMITH: And Pat Dodson believes the current election largess - Medicare Gold and the billion-dollar coalition health rebates - will never reach many indigenous people.

PAT DODSON: I am annoyed at that because the life expectancy for people, for Aboriginal men, is around 55 years of age.

So there will be few of us living long enough to enjoy any of those entitlements.

SUZANNE SMITH: For Pat Dodson, too, there was irony in the Prime Minister talking about Aborigines getting rid of their welfare mentality when both parties have promised billions of dollars of so-called middle-class welfare.

PAT DODSON: Everyone in Australia is looking forward to getting the pension, looking forward to retirement, looking forward to some rebate on their investments.

So it's a furphy to say you can rid of welfare.

Welfare is an important factor in the lives of all Australians.

And what I think Mr Howard is saying is that the Aboriginal people are not the people he is interested in looking after.

SUZANNE SMITH: For Martina Hajinoor, a life on dialysis is ahead of her.

She's hoping her children won't have the same fate.

Suzanne Smith, Lateline.

Source: ABC

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