- Invest in public health before next pandemic
- A framework for our children’s futures
- Danila Dilba Health Service 30 years
- Raise the age to at least 14
- $540m in continued COVID-19 response
- First COVID death in the NT
- Connecting primary care, research and policy
- Diabetes strategy endorsed
- New process for job advertising
Invest in Public Health Workforce now, before the next pandemic hits
Chief Health Officers and public health leaders from across Australia will today, 7 December outline their ideas for the future of Australia’s Public Health Workforce in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr Kerry Chant PSM (NSW), Prof Brett Sutton (VIC) and Dr James Smith (QLD) among others will focus their attention on ensuring the development of the future public health experts, in a forum organised by the Public Health Association of Australia in partnership with NACCHO and the Australasian Faculty of Public Health Medicine (AFPHM).
With the pandemic far from over and the next one around the corner, now is the time to plan for and commit resources to developing the next generation of public health leaders, PHAA CEO, Adjunct Prof Terry Slevin said.
“In our efforts in ‘Closing the gap’, it is essential that we strengthen the cultural safety and Aboriginal health expertise of our public health workforce,” Dr Megan Campbell from NACCHO said.
“There must be training and leadership opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and recognition of the important role of ACCHOs in keeping communities safe and healthy.”
You can view the media release here.
Image from cover of: National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workforce Strategic Framework 2016–2023.
Closing the Gap National Agreement – a framework for our children’s futures
NACCHO CEO and Lead Convener of the Coalition of Peaks Pat Turner AM delivered the keynote address this morning at the SNAICC National Conference.
“We have been protecting and caring for our families and our children for more than 60,000 years.”
“Before I am the CEO of any organisation, I am foremost an Aboriginal woman, the daughter of an Arrente man and a Gurdanji woman. I am part of a kinship structure where I have many reciprocal obligations and caring responsibilities to my family.”
“I say this as it is important that when we are talking now about supporting our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families to thrive and addressing the rates of out of home care of our children, that we always remember the strength that is in our peoples, our culture and our own ways. And that we remember that it is not our culture that is the problem, as our culture is our strength and the way forward.”
“Today, I want to talk to you about the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are saying about the reasons why there are so many of our children in the child protection system and what is needed by governments and non-Indigenous organisations and those working to improve the situation.”
“As part of this, I will talk about how the new National Agreement on Closing the Gap provides a framework to design and implement national and local responses to support our children.”
You can read the keynote address here.
Danila Dilba Health Service celebrates 30 years
On Saturday 4 December 2021, Danila Dilba Health Service in Darwin celebrated their 30th anniversary.
Danila Dilba has a wide range of services in and around Darwin, including a special men’s clinic, tackling tobacco and healthy lifestyles, youth support, social and emotional wellbeing, care co-ordination, parenting support, alcohol and other drugs, and advocacy.
The service is an integral part of their local communities regularly organising BBQs, sports carnivals and beach events.
During the pandemic Danila Dilba has been organising meals for isolated elders. They also have a great record in getting services to transient people with about 800 people sleeping rough in the area.
Upon request by Danila Dilba, NACCHO CEO Pat Turner AM created the below video with a congratulatory message to be played during the anniversary ceremony.
“It is a truly wonderful thing to see the ‘community control’ model that was developed by Aboriginal people at the very first ACCHO in Redfern, fifty years ago, now taken up all over the country. And it’s organisations like Danila Dilba that have been leading the way,” said Ms Turner.
Health and medical experts call for the age of criminal responsibility to be raised to at least 14
Leading health and medical organisations in Australia say they will not stop pushing for the law to reflect medical science, and for governments to raise the age of criminal responsibility to at least 14.
In an open letter sent today, a coalition of 30 health and medical organisations has called on all state and territory Premiers, Health Ministers and Attorneys-General to urgently raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to at least 14 years of age.
The letter outlines evidence which shows children under 14 do not possess the capacity to have criminal intent:
- Medical evidence is clear that children under 14 years of age are undergoing rapid brain development which makes them vulnerable to increased impulsivity, sensation-seeking behaviour and peer influence.
- Child development and neuroscience demonstrates that maturity and the capacity for abstract reasoning are still evolving in children aged 10 to 13 years, due to the fact that their frontal cortex is still developing.
The experts say alternative models to incarceration exist, and there is already an evidence-based pathway to raising the age as set out through the independent review headed by Emeritus Professor Morag McArthur.
You can read the media release here.
Read the open letter here.
You can read Emeritus Professor Morag McArthur’s independent review here.
$540 million to continue and expand Australia’s COVID-19 response
The Australian Government has invested a further $540 million in response to the COVID 19 pandemic including significant funding to keep Australians safe, and for COVID-19 testing.
COVID-19 has had an unprecedented impact on Australians’ way of life and the emergence of the Omicron variant of concern highlights that while we have come a long way, we require robust health measures to continue to underpin our COVID-19 Health Response.
Of this funding, $492 million will be invested into measures to continue support for all Australians, including:
- The Aged Care Preparedness Support Measures Extension
- The Victorian Aged Care Response Centre (VACRC)
- Support for Aged Care Workers in COVID-19 Program (SACWIC)
- COVID-19 Indigenous and Remote Response Measures
- The National Incident Centre
- MBS fee for COVID-19 pathology items
- COVID-19 pathology testing in aged care
- Aged Care: RAD Loan Scheme
In addition, $48 million will be invested into COVID-19 medical research to explore multiple aspects of COVID-19, including vaccination, treatment and modelling.
You can read the media release here.
COVID-19-testing. Image source: Kimberley Aboriginal Medical Services.
First COVID death in the NT
This story contains names and details of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples who have passed on.
A 78-year-old woman from the remote community of Binjari has become the first person in the Northern Territory to die from COVID-19. Her infection was linked to the current viral cluster in the Katherine region. The elderly woman who was not vaccinated died in Royal Darwin Hospital last Thursday night from complications related to COVID-19.
Before now, the Northern Territory was the only jurisdiction in Australia without any deaths from coronavirus.
“It is an awful reminder of the severity of COVID. It is a critical reminder of why we take COVID so seriously,” NT Chief Minister Michael Gunner said.
You can read the article in the ABC News here.
Binjari woman in her 70s becomes first person in Northern Territory to die from COVID-19. Image source: ABC News.
Connecting primary care, research and policy
Dr Isabel Hanson, a recent recipient of a research scholarship and a RACGP 2021 Academic Post Registrar, wants to combine her skills to make a positive impact.
Dr Hanson’s 2022 scholarship will take her to the University of Oxford in the UK, where she will undertake further postgraduate study in the field of translational health sciences.
On return to Australia from the University of Oxford, Dr Hanson plans to link her translational health research and policy skills with her work with Aboriginal communities, to continue advocating for an equitable health system.
“I am committed to working in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health,” she said.
“I hope in the future to work closely with Aboriginal communities, to ask them what they need for better health, and to be part of the team who does the research and implementation to make that happen.”
You can read the story in RACGP newsGP here.
Dr Isabel Hanson is passionate about giving back to the community. Image source: RACGP
Diabetes strategy endorsed
A report from Diabetes Australia and the Australian Centre for Behavioural Research in Diabetes found people diagnosed with the disease were being stigmatised for having the condition.
The report found up to 80 per cent of people reported feeling a sense of blame or shame for having the condition, while more than 25 per cent said other people’s attitudes and stereotypes about diabetes negatively impacted their mental health.
52 per cent of people with type 2 diabetes said people assume they were overweight or had been in the past, while 37 per cent said people made a judgment on their food choices. 26 per cent of respondents with type 2 diabetes said they had been told they brought it on themselves.
The Australian National Diabetes Strategy 2021-2030, the federal government’s strategy to identify and manage diabetes also found Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities had one of the highest rates of type 2 diabetes in the country. The strategy found Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities had recorded increasing rates of diabetes in children, adolescents, young adults and pregnant women, leading to intergenerational patterns of premature disease.
You can read the article in the Examiner here.
Image source: The Medical Journal of Australia.
New process for job advertising
NACCHO have introduced a new system for the advertising of job adverts via the NACCHO website and you can find the sector job listings here.
Click here to go to the NACCHO website where you can complete a form with job vacancy details – it will then be approved for posting and go live on the NACCHO website.
