Reconciliation and Social Justice Library
Reconciliation and Social Justice Library
Specialised medical and legal service organisations provide the most accessible and appropriate services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander in two areas of chronic disadvantage. These organisations provide services which are, in the main, taken for granted by non-Aboriginal Australians.
Aboriginal Medical Services
· Life expectancy among Aboriginal women is up to 15 years less than for Australian women generally; life expectancy for Aboriginal men is up to 22 years less than for Australian men generally.
· More than one in ten Aboriginal people suffer from diabetes.
· Aboriginal infant mortality is still more than 2 times higher than that for other Australian children.
· The incidence of trachoma among Aboriginal children, although decreasing, is still around 20 times higher than for other Australians.
While the situation in some of these areas continues to worsen, improvements in other areas are often attributable to the work of Aboriginal medical services.
· Between 1968 and 1986, the Aboriginal infant mortality rate in the Northern Territory fell from 88 per 1000 live births to 34 per 1000.
· Between 1971 and 1984, the Aboriginal infant mortality rate in Western Australia fell by 66%.
· Hospital attendance rates fell by 50% in Western Australia between 1974 and 1984.
Aboriginal Legal Services
The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody found massive over-representation of Aboriginal people at every stage of the criminal justice process, an over-representation which cannot be explained by any innate "criminality' among Aboriginal people.
· During the month of August 1988, 28.6 % of all detentions in police cells across Australia were Aboriginal people.
· The rate at which Aboriginal people are imprisoned is presently 29 times higher than that of other Australians.
· In Western Australia, the imprisonment rate for young Aboriginal men is more than 60 times the rate for non-Aboriginal men.
Aboriginal Legal Services enable Aboriginal people to obtain access to appropriate legal advice and representation -- a right expected by other Australians.
Sources:
A National Aboriginal Health Strategy, Report of the National Aboriginal Health Strategy Working Party (March
1989).
Report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, April 1991),