ABC TV The 7:30 Report Transcript 16/11/1999 America's top health official experiences eye-opening outback odyssey KERRY O'BRIEN: The Bureau of Statistics reported only two months ago that health problems for indigenous Australians begin early and continue throughout life. Babies born to indigenous mothers are twice as likely to have a low birth weight and more than twice as likely to die at birth as other babies. For almost every type of disease or condition, indigenous Australians die younger. And even though America's top health official, Surgeon-General Dr David Satcher, knew these facts before he arrived in Australia for a tour of Aboriginal communities with Health Minister Michael Wooldridge, he was still shocked by what he saw. Murray McLaughlin reports. MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: The Amangu Pitjantjatjaraku lands in the north-west of South Australia cover over 100,000 square kilometres, home to nearly 3,000 Aboriginal people. They are spread across six major population centres, three small communities and 30 homelands. Their isolation confronts every new visitor, even those who come as well briefed as Surgeon-General Dr David Satcher. DR DAVID SATCHER, US SURGEON-GENERAL: I didn't realise how very remote the communities that we visited are. How far they are from the townships and the centres of health and education and things like that. You don't have a lot of rain out here? DEAN COULTHARD, DIRECTOR, NGANAMPA HEALTH: We have more rain than what Alice Springs gets. MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: Dr Satcher hopes to glean from this visit tips for his domestic program to reduce disparities in health statistics between the wider American population and minority communities, especially Afro-Americans and American Indians. Dr Satcher has been startled to realise that health standards among Australia's Aboriginal population are so markedly worse than among the Indian population in his own country. DR DAVID SATCHER: If you use any of the standards -- parameters like infant mortality and life expectancy -- I would say the state of health of the Aboriginal population is worse than the native American or American Indians, yes. The life expectancy of American Indians in our country is around 70, I believe. Infant mortality is higher than it is for whites, but that means as opposed to being six or seven it's nine or ten per thousand. MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: Responsibility for health care through these lands rests with the Aboriginal people themselves. They established the Nganampa Health Council in 1983, soon after they got inalienable title to their land. Federal Health Minister Michael Wooldridge promotes self-management of the health service here as an example to Aboriginal communities elsewhere and as a showcase for his American visitor. MICHAEL WOOLDRIDGE, HEALTH MINISTER: I wanted to take him out into the bush and show him that good things could happen. I understand he's been very impressed. MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: The Nganampa's Health Council's focus is on primary health care and it boasts that its programs are at the leading edge of service delivery. Its first targets were rudimentary -- to reduce infection and to reduce the number of children having to be taken by air ambulance to Alice Springs. PROFESSOR PAUL TORZILLO, MEDICAL DIRECTOR, NGANAMPA HEALTH: We're down to around a third of the sort of sending away of kids and people to those town-based hospitals, compared to where we were in '84. So we've reduced those evacuations and referrals. Child health has improved here a lot. Immunisation coverage was about 60 per cent when we started and it's well over 95 per cent now for all kids under five. This is one of our outcome measures -- intervals of treatment for syphilis. In 1995, we were nearly at 50 days and now we're down to 12. MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: Sexually transmitted diseases were rampant through the so-called Pit lands when the Nganampa Health Council was established. But in the past few years, syphilis has been nearly eradicated and rates of chlamydia and gonorrhoea have been dramatically reduced. PROFESSOR PAUL TORZILLO: We're talking about rates of STDs which have gone from 20 per cent to 0.5 per cent over a period of 15 years or so. So, 40-fold reductions in the amount of disease that's around. We seem to be able to sustain it at that low level now with a good-quality program that health workers have a big role in. MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: Yet in spite of those gains, endemic poverty, inadequate housing, high unemployment and serious underachievement in education are prevalent throughout the Pit lands. They all give rise to health problems common to Aboriginal communities throughout Australia. DEAN COULTHARD: Most of us have problems with the sugar and high blood pressure and all that stuff. That's what's most problem we've got and eye troubles and ears. MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: In spite of the success of the Nganampa Health Service here too, they die long before their time -- 20 years younger than the wider Australian population. For indigenous people in North America, the difference is only five years. The United States Surgeon-General may have been impressed by progress here, but those mortality data have made a lasting impression. DR DAVID SATCHER: I am surprised that it is as bad as it is and it is significantly worse than it is for American Indians and African Americans in our country. We're committed to eliminating disparities and we're talking about a disparity of maybe five years in life expectancy, but that's significant in my opinion, and we're committed to eliminating that. I think 20 years is quite significant. I mean, it's hard to imagine being in the same country and having that kind of disparity in health. MURRAY McLAUGHLIN: Michael Wooldridge knows that raw statistics of the health and welfare of Australia's indigenous peoples reflect badly on Australia's reputation. But he refuses to dwell on bad news. MICHAEL WOOLDRIDGE: Aboriginal health is very challenging. I try to look at the good things. There's a lot of challenges and a lot we have to do. But it's far too easy to get despondent, wherever I feel despondent, I come out and look at a community like this and focus on what is going right. KERRY O'BRIEN: So a glimmer of good news on a bleak landscape. email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] � Australian Broadcasting Corporation 1999 ------------------------------------------------------- RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/ To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body of the message, include the words: unsubscribe announce or click here mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." RecOzNet2 is archived for members @ http://www.mail-archive.com/recoznet2%40paradigm4.com.au/
