ABORIGINAL RENAL DIALYSIS SERVICES

Mr MARSHALL (Norwood) (15:11): My question is to the Minister for Health. Will the minister advise whether the government will be providing remote dialysis treatment at the Substance Misuse Centre in Amata as recommended in the federal Senate resolution dated the 7^th of this month?

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (15:12): Thank you very much, and I thank the member for his question. It is an important question. We have been working with the Northern Territory and Western Australian governments but in particular have taken advice from Nganampa Health, the Aboriginal health control service which provides primary healthcare services on the lands.

Their advice to me has been consistently that a dialysis service on the lands just would not be sustainable for a whole range of reasons to do with staffing and also to do with the technology requirements of running such a service. Even if we wanted to put dialysis services in one place, it would not actually solve the problems of people who live in other communities on the lands because the distances they would have to travel would be extreme.

What was suggested by the federal government's inquiry (which was done in collaboration with us, Western Australia and the ACT) was something which we think is worth pursuing further, that is, the establishment of a mobile dialysis service which could provide temporary respite services to people who may have left to live in Alice Springs or elsewhere and who want to go back to their home communities for business for a week or two at a time.

You could have a mobile service, properly staffed, that could go to a community where there might be a week of ceremony, or a week of football celebrations, or anything of that like. You could have a van there, provide a few weeks—or even a bit longer—of service to a group of people who were gathered at that place, and then they would have to go back to where they are. It would be terrific to have dialysis available in all those communities.

There has been one Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory which has got a home-based dialysis service, but the standard of excellence that you would have to provide to make sure that worked safely is very high, and Nganampa's advice to me is that it is not really sustainable on the lands.