Experts urge more Australian aboriginal health workers
HONG KONG, Nov 2 (Reuters) - More of Australia's Aborigines should be trained as health workers in a bid to improve their well-being and boost life expectancy, experts say.
A third of indigenous men aged 15 will not live beyond 60, compared with 8 percent in the Australian population, wrote Alan Lopez of the University of Queensland in the Lancet medical journal.
The main causes of death for Aborigines were heart disease, suicide and diabetes.
By training aborigines to be healthcare professionals, they can educate their communities and help the healthcare system respond more effectively to their needs, according to a special report in the Lancet which compiled the views of experts.
"It is a broader reform strategy, making people available to teach and enabling people to rise out of poverty through employment," said Ian Anderson, professor of indigenous health at the University of Melbourne.
The report cited the example of an aboriginal health worker at a children's hospital in Sydney, who was so moved by the sufferings of Aborigines from renal disease that she pushed to have the issue studied.
Aborigines need to be given access to quality care and change their tobacco consumption and dietary habits, Anderson said.
"We also need aboriginal doctors and nurses ... we need to create a critical mass," he said.
"Training many more than the Australian system does now will lead to more indigenous people inside the system able to make it respond more effectively to their needs."
While life expectancies for indigenous groups in the Northern Territory have gone up to 60 years for men and 68 years for women from 52 and 54 in the late 1960s, the life span gap between Aborigines and non-aboriginal Australians is still 17 years.
In New Zealand, that gap is 7 years.
A third of indigenous men aged 15 will not live beyond 60, compared with 8 percent in the Australian population, wrote Alan Lopez of the University of Queensland in the Lancet medical journal.
The main causes of death for Aborigines were heart disease, suicide and diabetes.
By training aborigines to be healthcare professionals, they can educate their communities and help the healthcare system respond more effectively to their needs, according to a special report in the Lancet which compiled the views of experts.
"It is a broader reform strategy, making people available to teach and enabling people to rise out of poverty through employment," said Ian Anderson, professor of indigenous health at the University of Melbourne.
The report cited the example of an aboriginal health worker at a children's hospital in Sydney, who was so moved by the sufferings of Aborigines from renal disease that she pushed to have the issue studied.
Aborigines need to be given access to quality care and change their tobacco consumption and dietary habits, Anderson said.
"We also need aboriginal doctors and nurses ... we need to create a critical mass," he said.
"Training many more than the Australian system does now will lead to more indigenous people inside the system able to make it respond more effectively to their needs."
While life expectancies for indigenous groups in the Northern Territory have gone up to 60 years for men and 68 years for women from 52 and 54 in the late 1960s, the life span gap between Aborigines and non-aboriginal Australians is still 17 years.
In New Zealand, that gap is 7 years.
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