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May 26, 2007:
Healthcare in Australia is racist with
aborigines placed lower down on waiting lists,
claims a report by the Australian Medical
Association (AMA).
The report, the sixth annual audit of indigenous
health by the Australian Medical Association, also
found that the medical treatments given to
aborigines might be influenced by stereotypes
about indigenous people and their willingness to
undergo certain medical procedures.
The AMA report has cited other examples of
institutional racism, such as doctors who view a
refusal of treatment by aborigines that might be
based on fear or misunderstanding, as “culturally
based” rather than convincing an aborigine to have
treatment. Also, aborigines get poorer
representation in the health system because they
are highly likely to be serviced by medical
graduates who speak English as a second language.
The 17-year life expectancy gap between aborigines
and other Australians has been blamed on the
difficulties aborigines have in getting access to
services because they live in remote towns or are
poorer. Even accounting for differences in
physical access to health services and income,
indigenous Australians still die younger.
Non-indigenous men who live in remote areas still
have a life expectancy at birth of 73.1 years
while those classed as “most disadvantaged” can
expect to live 76.2 years – both much higher than
the 59.4 years that indigenous men can expect to
live.
The sixth annual audit report of indigenous health
by the Australian Medical Association says that
indigenous health remains “a national tragedy and
a national shame.” While the main causes of the
problem are “criminal under-funding” and general
social disadvantage, some causes are systematic.
Drawing on a 2003 report by the United States
Institute of Medicine, commissioned by US
Congress, the Australian Medical Association found
that “institutional racism” was preventing the
effective treatment of indigenous patients.
“Institutional racism is often covert, and is
frequently unrecognised by the agents involved in
it,” the report says.
It has found that the “the growing body of
Australian evidence suggests that there is
something more going on than these recognised
(access) barriers.”
Mukesh Haikerwal, president, of the Australian
Medical Association, says “it is not that
individual health workers are racist, or that the
system has been set up to be racist” but the way
it works means that aboriginal people often get
inferior treatment.
The Australian Medical Association – along with
indigenous health organisations, Oxfam and
campaigning group GetUp – is demanding an annual
increase in funding for indigenous health of about
$460 million a year to try to solve the problems
as well as more indigenous health workers and a
commitment to close the life expectancy gap.
Meanwhile, Australia’s Health Minister Tony Abbott
has rejected the view that the country’s health
system is racist. He said his Government had tried
to enhance indigenous use of mainstream health
services such as Medicare and the Pharmaceutical
Benefits Scheme.
BY OUR PHARMA CORRESPONDENT
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