Newslines Radio: Making all our families well – part one
Improving the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is critical to Closing the Gap.
Improving the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is a critical to Closing the Gap.
This Newslines Radio program looks at renal disease and the effect it is having on the Indigenous people of the western desert regions of the Northern Territory and Western Australia.
In the 1990s community members from the western desert area were talking about the difficulties for communities and families as an increasing number of elders were being forced to move to Alice Springs for renal dialysis treatment.
This led to the establishment of Western Desert Dialysis which looks after the Pintupi/Luritja people of the western desert with renal disease.
Western Desert Dialysis is funded by the Australian Government through the Department of Health and Ageing.
Sarah Brown is the manager of Western Desert Dialysis and she told Newslines that the organisation had made a real difference to people with the disease.
“It’s absolutely changed people’s lives. We’ve got people who are home in their community all the time, they only come in once or twice a year for check-ups but other than that they are living at home teaching their grandkids, looking after their country”.
Find out more
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people experience a burden of disease two-and-a-half times that of other Australians. A large part of the burden of disease is due to chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, chronic respiratory disease and chronic kidney disease. This can be reduced by earlier identification, and management of risk factors and the disease itself.
The Indigenous Chronic Disease Package aims to achieve this reduction by providing support to the health sector and better access to health care by Indigenous Australians.