Aboriginal health care a ’scandal’

April 2, 2007 at 1:03 pm (Aboriginal affairs, health, imperialism, race and racism, the state)

from ABC News Australia:

A new report has found Australia lags badly behind other wealthy nations in addressing the health and wellbeing of its Aboriginal population.

The report was commissioned by Oxfam and the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation and examined a range of key health indicators.

It found Australia was ranked at the bottom of a league table of wealthy nations such as New Zealand, Canada and the United States.

Oxfam executive director Andrew Hewett labelled the situation a “scandal”.

“If you’re an Indigenous Australian you’re going to die 20 years younger than most other Australians,” he said.

“That compares to similar countries where the gap is only about seven years.

Mr Hewett says governments should stop ignoring the issue.

“What’s lacking in Australia is the political will from governments of all parties at all levels and that’s what we need, we need to set a national target to close the gap between between health outcomes for Indigenous Australians and non-Indigenous Australians,” he said.

Here’s the full report from Oxfam.

3 Comments

  1. brownfemipower said,

    April 2, 2007 at 1:43 pm

    Geez, knowing the state of Indigenous health systems in other countries, this is frightening.

    That compares to similar countries where the gap is only about seven years.

    I wonder where they got this statistic–in the U.s. indigenous life expectancy is about 40-47 years. I think life expectancy for non-indigenous is more about 70ish.

  2. Fire Fly said,

    April 2, 2007 at 4:52 pm

    Yeah, I’m slightly suspicious of the statistic, too, but the report doesn’t go into detail about the health outcomes for indigenous peoples outside Australia. It just reports on the comparative life expectancy. There’s not much international comparison of health systems.

    When I have a little more time I’ll try to dig for info on indigenous health outside Australia and do some comparing.

  3. Link Roundup: 2 April 2007 « Vox ex Machina said,

    April 3, 2007 at 4:13 am

    [...] Aboriginal health care a scandal — Fire Fly spotted a report from Oxfam about health conditions for indigenous Australians. [...]

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