A recent article in The Age entitled ‘Victoria's Kooris battling a health crisis’ set me thinking. This article calls for more funding for the ‘25 Aboriginal-run health services’ and indicated that the ‘average life span for a non-Aboriginal Australian man is 76 and for a woman 82. But Aboriginal men can expect to live to just 59 and women to 65’.

It is absolutely fair and proper that we do all we can to ensure Aboriginal Australians, and all other Australians, have equitable health standards.

However, I am a little suspicious of the comparison made by the life expectancy statistics which seems to be inappropriate. Since the Aboriginal people are allocated exclusive health services on the basis of race it is safe to assume that the Aboriginal people, as a race, are (sadly) a low socio economic group. In that case the statistics for life expectancy for Aboriginal people must be compared with the statistics for non-Aboriginal people in the same socio economic group.

There is a correlation between socio economic status and health and according to a report on ‘Health and socio-economic equity’ the mortality rate ‘between bottom and top socio-economic quintile’ is significant.
(http://www.environment.gov.au/esd/national/indicators/report/value15.html):

Also according to this report, if I understand it correctly, no studies have been done to compare life expectancy of low income people with that of the general community. Where is the health equity if we have not even investigated the plight of other Australians in the same situation as Aboriginal Australians? Don’t we care about non-Aboriginal Australians?

According to The Age article ‘Many Aboriginal families in Melbourne are living in overcrowded, damp, cockroach-infested homes and wait up to three years for emergency housing.’ That heartbreaking picture applies equally to many non-Aboriginal Australians.

If Aboriginal people make up less than 3% of the population it is probable that there are more non-Aboriginal Victorians battling a health crisis than Aboriginal Victorians. Are they to be forgotten simply because they haven’t been included as a statistical group?

"Are they to be forgotten simply because they haven’t been included as a statistical group?"

Probably.

Dear Heduanna,

Australia is the only developed country on a World Health Organisation "shame list" of countries where children are still blinded by trachoma.

Impoverished Sri Lanka has beaten the disease, but not rich Australia.

According to the Director of the Centre for Eye Research in Sydney,
Professor Hugh Taylor, up to 80 per cent of Aboriginal children have potentially blinding trachoma because of untreated cataracts.

"This is inexcusable," he said.

In recent years, the health of Aboriginal women has so deteriorated that their death rate is six times that of white women. "A certain kind of statistical deafness has developed," wrote the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner.

In white Australia an enduring myth is the 'missing millions' of dollars that the Federal and state governments 'pour' into 'Aboriginal welfare.' It is the stuff of political and bar-room received wisdom, the fuel of bigotry, and it is false.

Dr Murray in Kimberley had been referring to a nationwide health review, which disclosed, that Aboriginal health received 25% less government funding per head of population than health care for whites.

For every dollar spent per head under the national Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, only 20 cents were spent, per head, on Aboriginal people.

When asked why the myth has such stamina. "It's part of the Australian pyche at some level," he said. "By believing that money has been spent and wasted, people move to the conclusion that conforms with what is in the backs of their minds: that the real reason is innate or genetic. More important, it allows white Australians to say it isn't their fault, it's the fault of Aboriginal people. A whole language of denigration backs this up.

"They don't look after their kids, and if only they would wash themselves" and allows the majority population to distance itself from the truth that our first nation continues to be denied essential citizenship rights. That's why we're last in the world, particularly when compared with New Zealand, Canada, and the US, which have comparable indigenous populations and where there has been significant progress in the last generation.

Dear Foxy,

I am not querying the seriousness of the health issues of Aboriginal people. I am querying the statistics that separate a group on the grounds of race from their socio economic group and compare the life expectancy of that group with the broader community. I am suggesting that if the statistics relating to the Aboriginal group were compared appropriately, that is with non Aboriginal Australians in the same socio economic group, then the gap would possibly not be as wide.

The comments by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner that you have quoted relate to a 1997 report so I am not sure of their relevancy. ‘In recent years’ could be referring to the 1980s (‘the health of Aboriginal women has so deteriorated that their death rate is six times that of white women’) and I would question the statistics ‘six times that of white women’ if ‘white women’ means all ‘white’ women from the broader community because once again it would not be an accurate comparison. (I assume ‘white women’ is a misnomer for all non-Aboriginal women.)

While it is clearly important the health issues of Australian Aboriginal people be addressed I do not think it is appropriate for statistics to be skewed in order to elicit more money for one group of Australians while possibly leaving other Australians disadvantaged.

(I am also intrigued by the continued use of the word Koori in Victoria. I was told by a Wurundjeri man that Koori is a NSW tribe and is not relevant to Victorian clans.)

Heduanna, Hi, I don't think aboriginal nation territories and "stste" borders are congruent. Koori is commonly used in southern NSW, for what thats worth.
Regarding health, as the large majority of aboriginals now reside in major cities it is of wonderment to me that access to medical advise is not apparently available to aboriginal peoples, as they are to all citizens of the country.
The health problems, reported by studies and the media, I've always understood were of those in remote communities? Stats don't seem to reveal this, how would one know?
fluff4

Dear Heduanna,

"Koori" is an Aboriginal language term used by Aboriginal people
in Victoria, Tasmania, and southern New South Wales to identify themselves.

Sometimes the word "Koori" is used on the posters and pamphlets which explain the reasons for collecting information about the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

The following is a website that may be of interest to you and some of the posters on this thread:

http://www.health.vic.gov.au/koori/general.htm

It may be of interest that in Victoria for the five year period -
1992 - 1996, the estimated life expectancy at birth of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men was from 9-17 years less than the life expectancy of all men in Victoria.

The estimated life expectancy at birth of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women was 10-18 years less than the life expectancy of all women in Victoria.

But you don't have to take my word for it. For any more up date information in regards to recording of Indigenous Status - contact the Koori Health Unit, Department of Human Services on - (03) 9637-4039 or fax - (03)9637-4077.

Cheers.