(Transcript from World News Australia Radio)
The federal government says health outcomes are improving among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, especially in chronic disease management.
The findings come in a new report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare which has been monitoring the success of its Healthy for Life Program, an initiative that funds various Aboriginal health services across the country.
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The Healthy for Life Program was set up by the federal government to help improve the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
The program focuses on the health of babies, children, mothers and the management of chronic diseases such as diabetes.
From 2007 to 2011, data was collected from about 100 health providers across the country who work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Dr Fadwa Al-Yaman, the author of the report, says a rise in the number of health assessments done by nurses and general practitioners was a major step forward in the treatment of chronic health conditions such as diabetes and coronary heart disease.
While there were increases in assessments for all groups, the biggest jump was seen in the over 55s - increasing from 14.7 per cent to just over 21 per cent.
And she says a teamwork approach encouraged by the program is behind the rise.
"The GP works with the nutritionist, works with the educator, who has to do the appropriate referrals to eye specialist, and foot specialist and so on. So some of the items we looked at are team care arrangements: how many people are actually participating in these team care arrangements, clients with diabetes or cardiovascular disease. How many are participating in GP management plans which is really having a structured plan between the GP and the patient."
There was also an increase of about ten per cent in the number of clients with coronary heart disease who had a General Practitioner Management Plan.
GP Management Plans involve coordinating the various medical services needed to treat a condition.
Justin Mohamed is the Chairman of National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation.
He says the results show the success extra funding is having on Aboriginal Medical Services.
"The progress is moving at a fairly steady rate. We know that our Aboriginal Medical Services are really doing a lot of great work as far as getting out to the community, getting these programs in these areas which have for many years been very hard to break. I think this is something which should be put to notice by the government that when money is invested in community-controlled, especially Aboriginal community-controlled health services, results can take place and can provide more meaningful services for individuals on the ground."
Another key area for Indigenous health is babies, children and their mothers.
It's an area that has seen some improvement but change has been slow.
Smoking rates are still too high among pregnant Indigenous women, with only a very small drop of one per cent in the number who smoked during the last three months of pregnancy.
Jason Brian King is the Chairperson of the Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation and he works with a number of rural communities in victoria.
He welcomes the improvements seen but says issues, such as high smoking rates, remain an area of concern, and anti-smoking and controlled drinking programs need more attention.
"Down here in the four Aboriginal agencies in Gippsland, we put together an advertising campaign saying 'Smoking No Good Eh?'. That's gone ahead I've been to Mildura just two weeks ago and the Mildura mob have put out their smoking campaign and it's completely different, that 'smoking kills'. So it shows that all different communities have different ways of getting things done. We've used the same production company and two different outcomes have come out of it. And that's one of the things we're trying to explain to both State and Federal [governments] that we need continued support to close the gap and for Healthy For Life to provide these services because we're not all the same, Aboriginal people all across the country basically if you broke us up, we would look like Europe, the eurozone. There's that many different agencies who do different things well, and we need to have those funded separately for us. That's one of them. And the next thing for us is the alcohol side of stuff which needs to focus on young mums and dads who drink at home."
