• Danila Dilba hosts Timor Leste delegation
• Youth suicide appalling blot on national conscience
• More support for Torres and Cape kids
• Big diabetes investigation
• Guideline for assessing and managing CVD
• Sector Jobs
• Key Dates – World Day for Safety and Health at Work – 28 April 2024
• Events and training

The NACCHO Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health News is a platform we use to showcase the important work being done in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, focusing on the work of NACCHO, NACCHO members and NACCHO affiliates.

We also share a curated selection of news stories that are of likely interest to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health sector, broadly.

Danila Dilba hosts Timor Leste delegation

Limited resources including chronic understaffing, with health clinics that are supposed to have five staff making do with one or two. A population that struggles with literacy, poverty and inclusion, worsening health outcomes. Geographic barriers, both in delivering health services and accessing them. Dependency on other jurisdictions to accept referrals in serious cases. One might be mistaken for thinking this is a description of the NT’s health system, but in fact this is a description of the challenges facing one of our nearest neighbours, Timor Leste.

However, the parallels are undeniable and it is why, last Friday Darwin’s Danila Dilba Health Service, an ACCHO that services 17,000 clients and has a workforce of 220, hosted a high-level delegation from the island nation, including its Health Minister, Dr Élia A.A. dos Reis Amaral.

Danila Dilba CEO Rob McPhee said the heart of the ACCHO model was that it is “community-driven, they are run by the community. Our clients always see an Aboriginal person before they see any other clinician. That immediately establishes rapport. It aids with cultural safety and communication as well. Often they [the Aboriginal health practitioner] will know the family or they’ll be able to understand the circumstances of that individual, so it creates this whole lot of understanding right at the beginning of the process, and I think that’s what we can share with place like Timor Leste.

The above is an extract from the article Danila Dilba Health Service hosts Timor Leste delegation seeking solution to health struggles published in the Cairns Post yesterday, 28 April 2024.

Youth suicide appalling blot on national conscience

Content warning: This article contains reference to suicide. Please refer to the services at the bottom of this article for support.

The death of a 10-year-old boy in foster care is a grimly familiar one. Existing ‘prevention schemes’ aren’t preventing anything and must be reformed. A 10-year-old Indigenous child dies in apparent suicide in WA. Family and community are devastated and the incident is so utterly awful – the child so young – that it catches national attention. It happens in March and a month later, when it’s made public, everyone says something must be done. This wasn’t March this year. It was March 2016.

Eight years ago, the WA coroner, Ros Fogliani, held a special inquiry into the deaths of 13 Indigenous children and young people in remote WA. Fogliani made 42 recommendations – her key observation applied to every case: “The deaths of the 13 children and young persons the subject of this Inquest were all preventable.”

The rate of Indigenous suicide in this country, especially among children and especially in the north-west of WA, should sit as an appalling blot on our national conscience. Suicide remains one of the leading causes of death among Indigenous children nationwide. Five years ago, concluding her report, coroner Ros Fogliani said “mainstream” suicide prevention programs were still being “adapted in an endeavour to fit into a culturally relevant paradigm” instead of being properly designed “in a completely different way”.

To view The Guardian article Indigenous youth suicide is an appalling blot on Australia’s conscience in full click here.

If this article brought up anything for you or someone you love, please reach out to, call or visit the online resources listed below for support:

13YARN – 13 92 76, 13yarn.org.au

Lifeline – 13 11 14, lifeline.org.au

Beyond Blue – 1300 224 636, beyondblue.org.au/forums

MensLine – 1300 789 978

Kids Helpline – 1800 551 800

Suicide Call Back Service – 1300 659 467

More support for Cape and Torres kids

A new child development service is taking referrals for families needing the support of a speech pathologist, occupational therapist, physiotherapist or psychologist. Designed to assess and support children from 0–18 years with complex developmental delays and disabilities, the family-centred service has already received more than 80 referrals after community visits to Bamaga, Injinoo and Thursday Island.

Northern Peninsula Area (NPA) and the Torres Strait were identified as priority areas with higher instances of children with developmental delays, but Torres and Cape Hospital Health Service (TCHHS) said it had been determined to ensure the service could be delivered to all communities within its service footprint. TCHHS allied health manager child development service Natalie Bellew said the team would spread their travel across 34 communities.

“It is so exciting that we have begun delivering this service, and such a benefit that we are able to see these children in their home communities where they can be supported by their whole family,” Ms Bellew said. “The team will work closely with local allied health teams and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health workers, along with our maternal and child health nurses and paediatricians.” While collaborating with local Indigenous health workers, the child development service team will also travel with a First Nations community engagement officer.

To view the Cape York Weekly article More support for Torres and Cape kids with developmental delays in full click here.

Big diabetes investigation

Tackling the growing problem of diabetes requires action on many fronts, including ensuring that Indigenous communities have affordable access to healthy foods and priority access to essential medicines that are currently in short supply, according to Associate Professor Lesley Russell, Menzies Centre for Health Policy, University of Sydney. Since May 2023 the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Sport has been conducting – at the request of the Minister for Health and Aged Care, Mark Butler – an inquiry into diabetes. Submissions for this inquiry closed in August 2023 with 470 submissions, available here received.

Recognising the wide range of issues that need to be addressed as part of the broad Terms of Reference, a new series of hearings were convened for November last year and continue into 2024. The Committee travelled to Yarrabah, an Aboriginal community outside of Cairns, to hear from the local ACCHO, Gurriny Yealamucka, about its experiences with diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes is one of the leading causes of the gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are more than three times as likely to live with diabetes and nearly five times more likely to be hospitalised with diabetes-related complications. A 2022 study showed that the burden of diabetes in the remote Aboriginal population of the NTis among the highest in the world.

You can read NACCHO’s September 2023 submission to the Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Sport’s Inquiry into Diabetes in full here.

To view the Croakey Health Media article The Health Wrap: a big diabetes investigation, questions for the Treasurer, primary care reforms, and the benefits of crochet in full click here.

Guideline for assessing and managing CVD

The 2023 Australian guideline for assessing and managing cardiovascular disease risk provides updated evidence‐based recommendations for the clinical assessment and management of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk for primary prevention. It includes the new Australian CVD risk calculator (Aus CVD Risk Calculator), based on an equation developed from a large NZ cohort study, customised and recalibrated for the Australian population. The new guideline replaces the 2012 guideline that recommended CVD risk assessment using the Framingham risk equation.

A variety of communication formats is available to communicate CVD risk to help enable shared decision making. Healthy lifestyle modification, including smoking cessation, nutrition, physical activity and limiting alcohol, is encouraged for all individuals. Blood pressure‐lowering and lipid‐modifying pharmacotherapies should be prescribed for high risk and considered for intermediate risk individuals, unless contraindicated or clinically inappropriate. Reassessment of CVD risk should be considered within five years for individuals at low risk and within two years for those with intermediate risk. Reassessment of CVD risk is not recommended for individuals at high risk.

The updated guideline recommends assessment over a broader age range and uses the Aus CVD Risk Calculator, which replaces the previous Framingham‐based equation. It incorporates new variables: social disadvantage, diabetes‐specific risk markers, diagnosis of atrial fibrillation and use of blood pressure‐lowering and lipid‐modifying therapies. Reclassification factors are also a new addition.

The full guideline and Aus CVD Risk Calculator can be accessed here.

To view The Medical Journal of Australia article 2023 Australian guideline for assessing and managing cardiovascular disease risk in full click here.

Sector Jobs – you can see sector job listings on the NACCHO website here.

Advertising Jobs – to advertise a job vacancy click here to go to the NACCHO website current job listings webpage. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to find a Post A Job form. You can complete this form with your job vacancy details – it will then be approved for posting and go live on the NACCHO website.

World Day for Safety and Health at Work – 28 April 2024

Yesterday, Sunday 28 April 2024 was World Day for Safety and Health at Work (World Day). The latest data shows that in 2022, 195 workers in Australia were fatally injured at work. This concerning statistic amplifies the importance of increasing awareness around work health and safety (WHS) to prevent work-related injuries and fatalities.

In 2024, the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) World Day theme explores the impacts of climate change on occupational safety and health.  The theme recognises that changing weather patterns can create WHS risks. Heat, flooding, and extreme weather events are increasingly likely to disrupt the normal operation of many businesses.

In addition, new technologies and industries in decarbonisation and the circular economy are emerging, creating new roles. Climate change, increasing urbanisation and proximity of humans and animals have also led to the emergence of novel infectious diseases and increased the transmission and spread of other diseases.

You can find more information about World Day for Safety and Health at Work on the International Labour Organization website here.

Free, specialised governance workshops for ACCHOs will be delivered in multiple locations across the country during 2024 and 2025. 

Registrations are open now for Perth: 16-17 April 2024. 

The program is delivered by legal experts and covers:  

• Delegation of powers 
• Finance for Boards
• Governance documents
• Managing conflicts of interest 
• Managing risk  
• Principles of good governance  
• Structure and role of boards and sub-committees 

To register, go here.

For more information, please contact NACCHO using this email link.