The Health Report, ABC Radio National, 9 April 2007

Norman Swan: Hello, you're listening to ABC Radio National, I'm Norman Swan and this is the Health Report. One of the dilemmas in medicine today and one of the things that often perplexes specialists and doctors is that after they've done everything they can for someone, after high tech surgery and using the most advanced drugs, the patient has the gall not to get better despite the best efforts of modern medicine.

Murray McLaughlin reports Good news on Indigenous health front on ABC's 7:30 Report, 11 October 2006.

KERRY O'BRIEN: The picture of Aboriginal health in Australia remains a depressing and shameful one, much higher rates of chronic heart, kidney, eye disease and diabetes than for non-indigenous Australia. There is the added scourge of petrol sniffing amongst young Aboriginals. But, more than a glimmer of good news from one remote community in central Australia, which has improved its health situation so much it sparked international attention. Murray McLaughlin reports from a place in the Territory called Utopia.

Ross Fitzgerald: An underfunded and overlooked local hero

Alcoholism and other drug addiction is the primary scourge of indigenous Australians. As Tony Koch recently highlighted in [the Australian], disadvantage continues to stalk indigenous people from the cradle to the grave. Yet in Queensland, despite Premier Peter Beattie's personal commitment to social justice, the state Labor Government has been tardy in supporting creative and well-proven initiatives by Aborigines to combat these deep-rooted problems.

The Katherine West Health Board and Nganampa Health Council are members of the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO) - the national peak Aboriginal health body representing 128 Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services throughout Australia.

While diabetes amongst Indigenous Australians appears to have been non-existent before colonisation, today diabetes has become the leading accelerator of mortality in Indigenous Australians. Dialysis (due to the complication of renal failure), is the most common reason for hospital admission of Indigenous people in Australia.

The Role of Partnerships: The Fred Hollows Foundation responded to a request from the Jawoyn community of the Northern Territory to tackle a major underlying cause of poor health - the lack of nutritious food. The result is a multi-faceted nutrition project that empowers local people to gain long-term improvements in nutrition by working in genuine partnership with the community.

Nganampa Health Council is an Anangu community controlled health organisation which has provided comprehensive primary health care services to the Anangu Pitjantjatjara (A.P.) Lands, situated in the far north-west of South Australia, for the past 20 years. There are six major clinics and three health worker stations.

The Katherine West Health Board Aboriginal Corporation (KWHB) was established to implement the Katherine West Coordinated Care Trial, covering the communities west of Katherine to the NT/WA border.

Further examples can be found in:

• The Good News, AMA 2004.
• Better Health Care: Studies in the Successful Delivery of Primary Health Care Services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. Commonwealth of Australia 2001.

If you are involved in or aware of other success stories in Indigenous health that you feel could be included please contact us.