The Northern Territory government is taking unprecedented steps to eradicate the gap between health services provided to whites and those for Aborigines. Health Minister Jane Aagaard, upon revealing the new plan on Tuesday, May 21 stated, “The territory cannot be allowed to exist with one part of its population largely healthy and one part largely sick.”
Aboriginal health problems in the territory range from cases of tuberculosis to the highest rates of rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease in the world. Most Aboriginal children suffer hearing damage due to ear infections. At a recent speech pathology conference held in Alice Springs, attendees addressed the high incidence of middle-ear infections among Aboriginal children.
Speech Pathology Australia’s Kath Vidler drew a clear link between hearing loss and other social problems. "Ear infections are very high in Aboriginal children and we also know that the literacy rates in Aboriginal children are very low," Ms Vidler was quoted as saying. She went on to say that, “there is a link between chronic middle ear infection and the ability to develop and use language appropriately."
Up to now, primary health care in remote regions of the territory was for the most part comprised of occasional visits by doctors to the areas. Under the new plan, 21 new indigenous health zones will be created within the territory, and each zone will have a permanent doctor.
By allocating funds from the Medicare Benefit Fund and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme which were previously unavailable, the plan aims to provide remote-area territorians with health care comparable to that in urban areas, providing doctors and nurses to areas which lack their services.
Mrs. Aagaard cited “real, regional partnerships between Government and Aboriginal organizations and communities” as the underpinning of the Government’s Indigenous Health reform agenda.
Aboriginal control over their own health care options is one of the goals of the new plan, which will provide consultants and trainers in order to teach Aborigines to run their own health boards.
