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Media Release

November 4 2008

Action and accountability
the key to improving Indigenous health

Fiona Stanley says the time for action and accountability in Indigenous health is nowFormer Australian of the Year, leading epidemiologist and passionate advocate for Indigenous health in Australia, Professor Fiona Stanley AC, says Indigenous communities deserve more action and accountability from Australian State and Federal Governments.

Prof Stanley will deliver the 2008 Annual Hawke Lecture presented by UniSA’s Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre on Thursday November 6 at the Adelaide Town Hall from 5.30 pm.

Her lecture – The Greatest Injustice: why we have failed to improve the health of Aboriginal people - will analyse the complex issues surrounding Indigenous health from the continuing intergenerational impact of the policy to remove Indigenous children from their families, through to the cavalcade of inquiries and commissions that have been handed down with no solid action to implementation.

And if there is a sense of frustration in her address it is genuine. The lecture will be based on a comprehensive suite of notes Prof Stanley prepared for the 2007/08 Coronial Inquiry into suicide rates in young Aboriginal people at Fitzroy Crossing. The notes are a passionate, questioning, and in turn damning and hopeful manifesto on what we must do to improve Aboriginal health.

From her earliest work in paediatrics at Perth’s Princess Margaret Hospital, where the hospital took care of deeply undernourished sick Aboriginal children, Prof Stanley has seen the consequences of lack of coordination and accountability in the provision of health services to Indigenous communities.

Her key messages are that we must try harder, understand that results will not come from single-platform strategies; that change will not come overnight; that funding alone will not make a difference and that real success will come only when there is a deep and passionate commitment to change from people across the community – black and white – from Government, through the public service and out there at the front line of services.

Director of the Hawke Centre, Elizabeth Ho says the Annual Hawke Lecture is designed to bring attention to the difficult issues of our times.

“Prof Stanley has attracted a full house of 1200 and a waiting list, which speaks volumes about the collective concern for ending the shame and damage of poor health for our first Australians,” Ho said.

Special guests in attendance will include former Prime Minister Bob Hawke, former head of ATSIC and patron of the Hawke Centre, Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue, Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, Robert French, and SA Minister for Health, John Hill.

Copies of the Annual Hawke lecture will be available online and the lecture will be broadcast on ABC national radio and TV at a later date.

Professor Stanley will be available for interview before the lecture from 2.30 to 4.30pm.
The lecture will be broadcast on ABC national radio and TV at a later date.

 

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