NATION'S SHAME WON'T GO AWAY
10.07.1995
A USTRALIA'S greatest shame is that it has taken the Sydney 2000 Olympics and possible international embarrassment at that event for our "fourth-world'' standard of Aboriginal health care to suddenly become a priority.
This is the constituency which won't be visited during the state election campaign by the political leaders.
None would be keen for the media entourage to be taken through the communities to witness the despair.
Poverty abounds. Empty eyes stare from emotionless faces.
And the question on everyone's lips is: Where does the money go?
This year's federal Budget allocation for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission was $927.9 mill
ion, down from the $954 million last year.
Minister Carmen Lawrence's Human Services and Health Department has $110 million earmarked for Aboriginal health and State Labor Member for Cook Stephen Bredhauer has denied assertions that nothing had been done to improve health standards in Aboriginal communities.
Mr Bredhauer, acknowledged as a tireless worker for Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, said a hospital had been built in most communities and a special incentive package had been developed for remote-area nurses.
But Aboriginal health care workers are angry and frustrated.
Despite the huge sums allocated for health measures over the years, it is just not translating into disease-preventive programmes _ needles in babies' arms.
A child and an adult died recently in Torres Strait from the
mosquito-borne disease encephalitis.
A couple of years ago, a 14-year old boy at St Paul's Mission, oa Island, was found to have leprosy and was being hidden by his family who realised the problem.
Sexually transmitted diseases are in epidemic proportions,
apparently with little hope of control.
Since 1985, 45 Aborigines have been diagnosed as HIV-positive.
Edgar Williams, an Aboriginal health worker for 18 years, is so concerned about the issue that he is contesting Saturday's state election as an independent for the sprawling northern seat of Cook.
"People point to the vast sums of money allocated to ATSI people and to health in particular, but the truth is it is being eaten up in the bureaucracy and is not getting through to the people in need,'' he said.
"Every year there's another pilot health programme announced
_ but nothing ever gets off the ground.
"I bet that every year I've been in this job there's been a pilot programme on nutrition introduced . . . and still they're called pilots.
"How good is health care when, so far this year, three Aboriginal women in the north have given birth at Cairns hospital to stillborn babies infected with syphilis?
"How come this wasn't picked up early in the pregnancy?''
A nursing sister at Doomadgee said STDs had over
taken trauma as the main medical problem in that community, but it was difficult to persuade infected people to get the treatment.
"Sex is something that's not talked about among Aborigines,'' she said.
"What is desperately needed is health teams with male members so the infected men will listen and submit themselves for the penicillin course.''
Outspoken Aboriginal health expert Associate Professor Gracelyn Smallwood told an indigenous health conference in Kuala Lumpur recently that the impact of colonis
ation in Australia had created a society which had become almost totally dependent on welfare.
In her address, Professor Smallwood said the impacts also included:
A massive decline in Aboriginal population from 3 mill
ion to 300,000.
An average life expectancy for Aboriginal people 20 years less than for other Australians.
Aborigines averaging 50 to 60 percent of prison populations and being 20 times more likely to be imprisoned than non-Aborigines.
The over-representation of Aboriginal children in corrective
institutions _ five times the rate of non-Aboriginal children.
An Aboriginal infant mortality rate three times that of
non-Aboriginal infants. Although it was six times as high and had decreased, the birth weights had not improved over 20 years.
A lack of basics in many Aboriginal communities, such as adequate housing, clean running water, sanitation and nutritional foods.
Alcohol and drug abuse in epidemic proportions, leading to high rates of sexually transmitted diseases, violence, child abuse and neglect.
The declaration late last year that the health status of indigenous Australians was of fourth-world standard _ similar to that of developing countries in the third world.
PROFESSOR Smallwood completed her lecture by invit ing participants to imagine a scenario of an indigenous child being born and growing up in north Queensland.
"It would typically be a remote community, suffering from extreme poverty, hopelessness and generally appalling living conditions,'' she said.
"This child is likely to be viewed by the authorities as being "at risk' of abuse and neglect.
However, this assessment must be examined in light of the
environment in which this child will be reared.
"First, the mother-to-be is often very young, in her teenage
years.
"During her pregnancy she can be subjected to violence and abuse from her partner and has limited access to nutrit
ional foods, as the cost of living in remote communities is
astronomical.
"For example, a cabbage would cost around $12. In many remote communities the government stores are still purchasing second-rate fruit and vegetables and selling to our people at 130 per cent mark-up.
"If the mother is lucky, she may have ante-natal care twice during her pregnancy.
"At 33 weeks, she will be sent away to a hospital in the nearest regional centre _ Cairns or Townsville _ where the child is born, forfeiting his or her birthright.
"The mother usually survives the culturally inappropriate, white male mid wifery service and gives birth to an undernourished baby, born premature, away from her support system.
"The mother then returns with her newborn baby to a
poverty-stricken, isolated and remote community.
"If she is not encouraged to breast-feed, she can pay up to $17 for a tin of milk formula which would cost $7.50 in the city.
"The welfare cheque arrives once a fortnight. On the alternate week, she will usually run out of money and to make the milk formula last, the baby receives a weaker and weaker solution.
"Mum herself eats less, usually carbohydrates and fat, rather than protein. Because of this "coping' strategy, the baby's weight will be low and the baby will be regarded by the authorities as failing to thrive.
"The baby will be underweight for his or her age, and undoubtedly suffering from lactose intolerance, infected with gut parasites, skin and chest infections, glue ear and possibly renal disease.
"Should this child survive to the age of two years, he or she will still be regarded as malnourished: and then there is Western welfare intervention, which is totally culturally inappropriate.
"Sending ATSI children into a Western environment is fine until they become teenagers, when the major problems commence: identity crises, embarrassment at being black in a white world.
"Then there is the coping mechanism _ alcohol and drug abuse, which can lead to suicide.''
If you thought the degradation and exploitation of young Aboriginal children had got as bad as it could, think again.
Several kilometres north of Lockhart Aboriginal community on Cape York Peninsula, which houses about 700 Aborigines, is Chilly Beach.
It's home to "the ferals'' _ about 30 white people who live on unemployment benefits and most of whom grow marijuana for a living.
Lockhart council clerk David Clark says these unscrupulous people prey on young Aboriginal children, getting them to commit crimes for them.
Dozens of charges have been laid against "the ferals'', but their disgraceful conduct continues _ at taxpayer expense.
"They have convinced many of the young kids to steal for them, to take stuff that is useful for their lifestyle,'' Mr Clark said.
"That could be drums of fuel, tools, hardware, building equipment, machinery spare parts, anything of that nature.
"The ferals don't have the guts to do the break and enters
themselves, so they get the kids to do it. We have to bolt everything down here.''
Community leaders confirmed that the ""payment'' for the young children _ mostly under 10 _ was mari
juana.
"The young boys won't even talk to their brothers about it _ they keep it a secret. But they come to school smashed out of their brains,'' a community health worker said.
"The police get the ferals on some charges, but they just keep in good with our kids by supplying them with the grass. They are just destroying them and nobody is really doing anything.''
Mr Clark said the council had recently approved the expenditure of $1200 to desex the hundreds of dogs in the community, or to destroy the ones not wanted. Many are mangy and carry disease.
He said the combined septic/sewerage system in the community had been installed in a piecemeal manner in 1992 but was totally inefficient, constantly blocking and causing problems.
As well, there was only 21 hours of reserve water supply if the main pumps broke down.
A health assessment profile of Lockhart residents showed 65 per cent of households felt fruit and vegetables were too expensive and they could not afford them.
However, up to $2 million goes through wet canteens in the local communities each year, with beer costing $60 a carton.
The health profile said: "A survey of 11 children for five days showed that of a possible 165 meals, only eight included fruit or vegetables and this was the odd apple or orange and sweet potato.
"These children were 10 years of age.
"A similar survey of nine children aged 12 showed a possible 126 meals of which 14 meals contained vegetables or fruit. Carbohydrates and protein seemed to be plentiful in both the household survey and children's survey.''
Prices for food commodities in the communities are at least double that in Brisbane super markets.
KUNJAN tribal elders "Auntie' Brumby and husband Nelson Brumby with granddaughter Priscilla consider conditions in the Kowanyama Aboriginal community.
The health status of indigenous Australians is of fourth-world standard _ similar to that of developing countries in the third world.
