Aboriginal health 'a hundred years behind whites'

By Kathy Marks in Sydney
Published: 02 May 2007
Health standards among Australia's Aborigines are as poor as those among the white population before the advent of penicillin nearly a century ago, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
A WHO report found that Aborigines still suffered from leprosy, tuberculosis and rheumatic heart disease, all of which were eradicated decades ago in other developed nations. In some parts of New South Wales the average life expectancy for Aboriginal men was 33.
The paper was presented to a meeting in Adelaide of the WHO's Commission on the Social Determinants of Indigenous Health, which is also investigating the situation in New Zealand, the US and Canada. It concluded that, on every indicator, the state of health of Australian Aborigines was far worse than that of indigenous populations in other developed nations.
Lisa Jackson Pulver, who co-authored the chapter on Australia and New Zealand, criticised the Australian government for failing to address the root causes of poor health. They included a long-standing refusal to recognise the injustices of the past, she said.
Dr Jackson Pulver, from the Indigenous Health Unit of the University of New South Wales, wrote: "It is acknowledged by the government that Aboriginal Australians have poorer health, educational, employment and social outcomes, however the solutions to address these issues have little to do with the underlying causes." These were "a combination of material deprivation and psycho-social stressors related to stress, alienation, discrimination and lack of control".
In New Zealand there were still health inequalities between the Maori and white populations, but the gaps were fewer and smaller than in Australia, and closing. "Unfortunately we can't say the same [in Australia]," Dr Jackson Pulver said. "On many indicators, [indigenous] health now remains unacceptably lower and at levels experienced nearly a century ago by our non-indigenous peers."
She told ABC Radio: "Indigenous babies born today can expect to live only as long as people in Australia 100 years ago. The Aboriginal people are dying at the same kind of rates that people did 100 years ago in Australia... before penicillin."
Researchers found life expectancy among white Australians was 76.6 for men and 82 for women. In Aboriginal communities it was 59.4 for men and 64.8 for women.
Dr Jackson Pulver believes the after-effects of colonisation and injustices such as the forcible removal of Aboriginal children from their families were still having an impact. The factors included "people being alienated from their country, land, language and culture", she added.
She noted in the report that the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, referred to the "recognition of past wrongs as the black armband view of history", and was unwilling to make a formal apology.
A report last month by Oxfam and the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO) reported similar findings. Dea Delaney Thiele, chief executive of NACCHO, told ABC that a 1 per cent increase in the national health budget would place indigenous health spending on a par with the rest of Australia.
The Health Minister, Tony Abbott, said the gap was "something which no one can be happy about". But, he added: "I don't think you can realistically expect an immediate cash injection of the dimension you suggest, for the simple reason that you've got to have the infrastructure in place to make it effective."