120907oceanianewsreports1

Australia: Maori Medical Practitioners Association

Concerns raised about long–term Aboriginal health

A statement from Te Ohu Rata o Aotearoa, New Zealand’s Maori Medical Practitioners Association [Te ORA], calls for well–resourced, consistent and sustained long–term strategies in addressing Aboriginal health and social outcomes in Australia’s Northern Territory.

Whilst Te ORA welcomes the Australian federal Government’s stated intention to improve child health in Aboriginal communities, it is concerned about the narrow scope of the measures and the processes used to implement them. It believes that improvements to health cannot succeed if they focus on one age group alone or a limited number of issues.

The Maori Association says that health services must focus on diseases and health problems that are prevalent in Aboriginal communities, including substance use and mental health issues, which arise in part from this population’s experience of marginalisation and dispossession and past Government programmes which resulted in the ‘Stolen Generation’.

Te ORA believes that to eliminate current health and social problems requires approaches that focus on healing and the resolution of emotional, psychological and spiritual harm.

The Association urges the Government to take advantage of the expertise of Aboriginal people who work in health and related areas and believes that an approach which fully involves indigenous people is essential to make sure the programme does not inflict further harm on fragile and vulnerable individuals and communities.

For further information visit the Australian Indigenous Doctors Association website at: www.aida.org.au.

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