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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-05-16 Daily Xml
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Indigenous Health Workers

The Hon. C. BONAROS (15:21): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs a question about Indigenous health workers.

Leave granted.

The Hon. C. BONAROS: South Australia's inaugural Chief Aboriginal Health Officer, Tanya McGregor, believes increasing the number of Aboriginal workers in the health system must be a priority for the state government. She believes career pathways need to be improved to ensure more Indigenous South Australians become doctors, nurses and midwives. Ms McGregor believes to do so, it is important to partner with universities to boost the supply of graduates and with non-government Aboriginal controlled health organisations to grow the Indigenous health workforce. She said and I quote:

The fact of being a healer…is not foreign to an Aboriginal person. I think it's more about working in a westernised system and model that's sometimes the greatest challenge. It's the age-old thing of—if you can't see it, you can't be it. Because we don't have a lot of (Aboriginal) clinicians people don't see that as a pathway that they can see themselves in.

Ms McGregor also revealed she is working on an Aboriginal healthcare framework due to be released sometime this month. My questions to the minister are:

1. Does the government agree with the views and sentiments expressed by Ms McGregor?

2. What actions is the government taking to increase the number of Aboriginal workers in the health system as a priority?

3. What are the objectives of the Aboriginal healthcare framework and will it be released publicly for comment?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (15:23): I thank the honourable member for her important question and, yes, I absolutely share the concerns, the views, the aspirations that Tanya McGregor has outlined. It is a critically important area and, as the honourable member outlined, providing care and healing is something that is very familiar to Aboriginal communities. In the Pitjantjatjara Ngaanyatjarra communities, ngangkaris (or traditional healers) are a very strong feature of life and how people are cared for and looked after.

It is something that I am passionate about as well. I have regular meetings with the Aboriginal community controlled health sector, with Minister Chris Picton, a number of times a year. I have been privileged to address a number of forums that various local health networks have run for their Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workforce, talking about issues that are faced, career development and encouraging more people to be involved in health care.

We know that the health outcomes for many Aboriginal people in South Australia fall well below those of the rest of the population. It is something that I firmly believe and I think most who have experience and most of the evidence points to is that when Aboriginal people are involved in the provision of services they tend to be better, more informed and more effective services.

I heard the health minister describe scholarship programs that are now in place that have significantly increased the number of Aboriginal people who are involved in training at a number of levels of the health sector through training to be doctors, to be nurses. I know, in terms of between certificate I and IV, the number of Aboriginal people who have returned to their remote communities who have been certified as Aboriginal health practitioners.

I partook for part of I think it was Friday about a week and a half ago—the health minister ran a full day workshop that brought together leaders in the state government sector of health care, leaders of many Aboriginal communities and Aboriginal people from Aboriginal health organisations for a full day round table that the health minister attended for the whole day to hear firsthand what the issues are and how the issues can be addressed.

I am certainly optimistic and buoyed by the very significant interest the health minister, the member for Kaurna, Chris Picton, is taking, and I am pleased to be providing help and advice where I can on this important issue.

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