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The Forum > Article Comments > Aboriginal health needs more than a quick fix > Comments

Aboriginal health needs more than a quick fix : Comments

By James Ensor, published 17/7/2007

The time for the quick fix is over. Now is the time to be visionary to tackle the root causes of the problems besetting some Aboriginal communities.

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On the basis of Oxfam's excellent record in impoverished communities around the world, I'd like to see Oxfam contracted by the Federal Government to trial some of their innovative community development programs in consultation with remote Aboriginal communities.

There are many good programs in Australia and around the world. In my experience at Gununa, with the right approach and funding, significant improvements to the quality of life of residents, including economic and cultural community development are possible.
Posted by Quick response, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 3:31:15 PM
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Poverty is both, both a root cause and another symptom.

People who do not feel themselves poor do better than people who feel themselves poor.

People who feel themselves capable of improving things for themselves tend to get to work and improve things for themselves, not wait on others to do it for them.

Oxfam worked well where people did not have sit down money.
Posted by polpak, Saturday, 21 July 2007 4:28:09 PM
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I am sad, and I weep for first nations, but the issues, as vast as they are are inflicted by the intelligentsia of our nation both black and white.

In my state we have five universities, each with an Aboriginal/Indigenous centre of focus.

None of those centres has a black face with a PhD leading the centre!

I recall eleven years ago when the first Nyoongar Phd qualified, in education. I thought that there would be a fight over writing a package for the woman to head a university centre. Wrong!

Wrong why? The vice-chancellor's of these institutions have the patronised comfortable black faces they want in their comfort zone, and they are not about to change that situation. They have their feelgood, and are not moving to a spill of positions.

Concurrent with this white failure, a policy of "Aboriginalisation" was pursued in academe. Bottom line I expressed at the time was, to an Aboriginal leader, "Your son needs brain surgery? D'you want a black bricklayer or a real brain surgeon to do the job?"

I saw one white woman, a registered nurse with thirty years experience with at least two graduate degrees moved out of lecturing in Aboriginal Health, to be replaced by an Aboriginal face, with no tertiary qualifications!

I have seen a head of centre (HOC) given three years fully paid study time to gain a Phd. That she did not qualify did not did not thrust her HOC and professor's salary out the door for a qualified person.

Cynical, maybe, but about both black and white Australia, white by patronisation, and black by accepting assimilation by superannuation.

But this does not stop the babies from dying does it? Where is the fix?

In part by academe doing its job; responsibly, professionally, and determinedly, and if that means sacking either lazy Aborigines and/or patronising vice-chancellors, so be it.

And another part is in Aboriginal Australia accepting that the world in which we live demands high quality real qualifications regardless of status, colour, creed or any other aspect of one's cultural roots
Posted by Sapper_K9, Monday, 23 July 2007 2:20:06 PM
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Ah, James Nesnor, in your eagerness to praise the gatekeepers of Aboriginal health services you forgot/omitted to mention the unmentionable, the nurses who are relied upon for health care in remote communities. An academic oversight perhaps - or could it be denial? And in your desire to follow popular lines you omitted to ask about the distribution of funding for Aboriginal health (so did Oxfan and NACCHO)in the Closing the Gap report. Who gets the bulk of the money? When was the last critical audit of health care outcomes (if there ever was one)? The answers, should you be curious enough - or care enough - to know, could surprise you and alert you to the need for a deeper investigation.
Posted by jenni, Monday, 23 July 2007 9:20:45 PM
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Jenni,

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6097#87700

You and I have a point of agreement here. Years ago I viewed the invention of the graduate Aboriginal Health Worker with some optomism. I was horribly wrong. We yet have no NATIONAL competency and registration base, due in the main, to state based politics.

We have an adequate health structure, we need First Nation Australians to enter into it. But whilst the issue is patronised by the politics of academe and their hierarchy, the babies are still dying....

Sapper_K9
Posted by Sapper_K9, Monday, 30 July 2007 12:52:46 PM
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As a community most Aboriginal people agreed to work for the dole, then the do gooder's fearing that whites may have to as well had the program stopped. The same idiots also told us we couldn't disipline our children or send them bush to learn our law, and then complained when they broke the white's mans poor excuse for law.

Also how is it that when money spent on Indigenous people to right wrongs created by the theft of our lands and economy is refered to us taxpayers money. Big news without the theft of that land their would be no white economy, and handouts to car makers, various sporting events and first home buyers would not have happened.

Don't get me wrong I hate the parasites in my community as well who have created a lifestyle for themselves with little education, and blocked opportunities in the community for self preservation reasons like ATSIC. As for behavioural problems in the communities, as far as I am concerned we should round up all the drunks druggies and pedophiles in the community, transport them to the middle of the desert and let them rot in the sun.
Posted by Yindin, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 11:35:45 AM
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