Latest news with #AboriginalHealth
ABC News
29-06-2025
- Health
- ABC News
Police called as South West Aboriginal Medical Service members attempt to oust board
Members of one of southern Western Australia's leading Aboriginal health organisations have marched on its headquarters demanding the dissolution of its board. Police were called to the headquarters of the South West Aboriginal Medical Service (SWAMS), 168 kilometres south of Perth in Bunbury, on Wednesday last week after members staged a protest. About two dozen SWAMS members, including one recently ousted director, were blocked from entering its offices. The group instead held an unofficial meeting in the lobby, where they voted to dissolve the board and appoint elder delegate David Williams as an interim director. Mr Williams, who sits on the board of the Wagyl Kaip Southern Noongar Aboriginal Corporation and drove from Katanning for the meeting, said it was disrespectful that the members were not allowed inside. "Some of the elders are over 80 years of age," he said. "They've fought a long time for the improvement of our people and services, and you haven't even got the respect to allow them to go in, sit down and voice their opinions. It took police about an hour to disband the group due to confusion over who was or was not officially employed there and permitted on the premises. No charges were laid. SWAMS's leadership has been in turmoil this year. The ABC has been unable to confirm how many directors officially remain on the board. Just three names remain listed on the SWAMS website — chairperson Phillip Ugle, Ernie Hill, and Janine Williams — down from six as recently as May. Chief executive Lesley Nelson, who had led the service since 2015, was also stood down earlier this year. SWAMS member and nurse Donna Turvey said the circumstances of her departure remained unclear. The ABC has contacted Ms Nelson for comment. Ms Turvey claimed there was internal friction between the SWAMS board and executive team, with the constitutional legitimacy of some board members questioned. Fellow SWAMS member Lynette Narkle said there was general confusion around what had happened with Ms Nelson and some of the deposed directors. "We're concerned about the lack of transparency," she said. The ABC has repeatedly approached SWAMS for comment on this matter. Ms Turvey said many SWAMS members had lost faith in the current board. She said the current leadership was jeopardising SWAMS's services and a long-fought-for health hub supported by $36.6 million of combined state and federal funding. "It's our elders who are going to suffer, it's our young people who are going to suffer, our mental health patients," she said. "We are requesting a spilling of the board today before there is any more damage to this company." Ms Turvey said the removal of several directors was supported by at least 60 members, which she said was above the 5 per cent required to call a general meeting on the issue. The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Commission issued a compliance notice to SWAMS in March, alleging it had breached conditions of its registration with the scheme. The notice said the corporation had failed to commence a mid-term audit within 18 months of becoming registered. In a statement posted to SWAMS's Facebook page, chair Phillip Ugle acknowledged concerns around the charity's governance but said they were unfounded. "The SWAMS board wishes to reassure our members, clients, and community that we have acted in accordance with all legislative, governance, and constitutional requirements, and have continued to seek independent legal advice throughout this process," he said. Mr Ugle said SWAMS would continue to operate as normal, and services had not been impacted. The service has since posted, informing the community that all SWAMS NAIDOC events have been postponed. A state government spokesperson said it had no powers to intervene due to SWAMS being constituted federally under the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). The Federal Department of Health, Disability and Ageing said it was aware of the current governance issues at SWAMS. "Matters relating to the composition and conduct of an incorporated organisation's board are primarily the responsibility of its members and the relevant regulatory authority — in this case, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission," a spokesperson said. "The department actively monitors issues as needed to ensure that funded services are delivered in line with the obligations of their grant agreements. Where those obligations are not met, the department may consider taking action."
The Guardian
25-06-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
All parents need someone in their corner like we had. But for First Nations parents, having an Aboriginal midwife is essential
When we first shared our pregnancy news with friends, the advice from those who had been through birth was to get into a midwifery program. But the midwifery programs at our local hospital were full – or so we thought. When we were offered a place in an Aboriginal midwifery program, we declined. Narelda, a Whadjuk Noongar woman, was not the birth parent – Karina was – and we didn't want to take the place of someone who might need it more than us. We knew the healthcare system is notoriously culturally unsafe and this racism and discrimination is contributing to the shocking statistic of Indigenous women being three times more likely to die during childbirth. But one of the midwives was in the room before we knew what was happening, explaining how the program is for families and by helping provide a culturally safe environment for Narelda during our pregnancy and birth, it would benefit all of us. Tears of deep appreciation rolled down Narelda's cheeks. Unfortunately, the midwives in our program don't work on weekends – which is when we went into labour. We were lucky to have other wonderful midwives help us deliver our baby, Sanna, but it was after the birth that we found ourselves saying things like: 'Thank goodness we are in the Aboriginal midwifery program', and': 'How would more vulnerable parents cope or get the medical care they need?' Sanna was born on a Sunday morning and, because of a third-degree tear, Karina required surgery. By Monday morning, Karina was distressed; no one had explained to her what had happened, warned her how severe the swelling might be, talked to her about pain management, given her food, said she could shower or explained how to empty the catheter. Karina's breasts were also engorging and nipples blistering, which was painful, and she was feeding for durations well beyond what a newborn needed. Thankfully, in rolled our midwife. 'Have you been given ice? Has anyone looked at you?', she asked. It turned out just up the hall was a fridge full of ice specifically for the tear and the breasts – no one had mentioned it, despite icing a third-degree tear being standard practice. There was also a kitchen where food could be made outside service times, which Karina had missed due to multiple visits to the NICU. Our midwife had a look at the stitching and checked Karina's abdomen for hernias; she also sorted out painkillers, because despite asking for something stronger than paracetamol, there was a reluctance to give it and she was suffering unnecessarily. Our midwife told Karina she didn't have to leave the baby on the breast so long and gave her permission to shower. If our midwife wasn't there, it seemed like no one would have done any of this, and the result would have been an increasingly traumatic birthing experience. All parents need a person in their corner like our midwife was, but for Aboriginal parents we believe it is absolutely essential. We experienced this first-hand when Narelda raised what became a very serious issue with the cannula in Sanna's arm. Her concerns were dismissed every time, but she was devastatingly vindicated when an incident report over the damage to Sanna's arm was made several days later. On another occasion unrelated to the cannula, an interaction with a staff member left her feeling shamed, belittled and embarrassed. Some would say the colour of Narelda's skin had nothing to do with it – plenty of parents are ignored by medical practitioners when they shouldn't be. But the evidence is that racism is rife, and for those who experience it, you know it when you feel it. That's also true of homophobia. We felt despite all the rainbow lanyards, there is a long way to go for queer families in hospitals. Being in an Aboriginal midwifery program meant we not only had a culturally safe experience during the pregnancy with the midwives from a First Nations perspective, but also an LGBTIQA+ one. There is clearly a need for greater investment in all nurses and midwives, but states and territories must adequately fund and expand Aboriginal midwifery programs. The reported experiences of racism, inadequate care, and lack of consent in maternity wards are shocking and cannot be ignored. If we, a non-Indigenous birth mother and two people who have some confidence speaking up, needed an Aboriginal midwife to advocate for us and for culturally safe care, then you can imagine just how much they are needed by younger, more vulnerable Aboriginal parents and babies. As the reporting in the Birth Rights series shows, Aboriginal midwives save lives, and, we have no doubt they help keep First Nations families together. Where an opportunity exists to reduce trauma, why wouldn't you take it? Narelda Jacobs is a journalist and presenter for 10 News First. Karina Natt is a political and communications adviser. Their book, If Queers Weren't Meant to Have Kids … is out 4 November.
The Guardian
18-06-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
‘Wrapped in culture': NSW birthing centre next step in long road to better maternity services for Aboriginal mothers
Melanie Briggs is gazing out at a grassy field, swatting away mosquitoes as we walk through the brush and scrub on a sunny autumn afternoon on the New South Wales south coast. We come to a stop amid the knee-length grasses where the tall eucalyptus trees reach up to the blue sky. Here she unfurls her vision for women giving birth on country. 'I can see the first birth here,' she says. 'It will happen at night.' The birth will take place at a new, culturally safe holistic maternity care centre. The NSW government has committed $45m over seven years to Waminda Minga Gudjaga Gunyah, a local Aboriginal health clinic, for the three-storey Gudjaga Gunyahlamai birth centre. Some of the eucalypts that surround us will have to be felled to make way for the clinic but the wood will be used in the building and to make coolamons – traditional carrying vessels made from the trees will be given to mothers. 'We want [you] to be wrapped in culture when you walk into the space,' Briggs says. Briggs' mission is reclaiming the birthing suite and centring the mother's cultural strength and resilience. The Birthing on Country project aims to decolonise medical care and fuse traditional knowledge and practices with maternity care – improving clinical outcomes for mothers and newborn babies in the process. 'Birth is the first ceremony,' Briggs says, 'our sacred birthing practices and bringing them back into a place for Aboriginal women.' 'We'll have smoke going, we'll cleanse the baby and mother, we'll use the cultural practices we're not allowed to use in the system.' Briggs is a senior endorsed midwife at Waminda, an Aboriginal community-controlled organisation that provides everything from early vaccinations and primary health checks to elder care, mental health services, and social support. It has expanded its midwifery services, matching Aboriginal midwives with pregnant women at Nowra's Shoalhaven hospital to provide accessible, culturally safe support for Aboriginal women and babies during pregnancy, birth and postpartum. The freestanding birthing centre for low-risk pregnancies is the next big step in the long road to improving maternity services in the region. A landmark birth trauma inquiry by the NSW parliament in 2024 heard harrowing testimony in about 4,000 submissions detailing women's experiences of being disrespected, traumatised or coerced into unwanted or unnecessary interventions. In some cases, women were left with debilitating birth injuries, denied pain relief and experienced systemic discrimination and a lack of culturally safe care. Briggs says she and her colleagues at Waminda have heard first-hand accounts from women who came to the clinic for antenatal and postnatal care of racism and discrimination in maternity wards. 'We weren't in the labour room, so we had no control over who was walking into the room or who was putting their judgment and their racial acts upon our women and our babies,' she says. 'There was a lack of culturally safe maternity care. Women weren't accessing care because of racism and judgment. [They are] fearful of child removals, which are still ripe today … What that has created is different layers of trust and distrust within an institution that has caused harm.' Briggs says she saw racism daily in her early career working in Sydney hospitals. 'As a midwife in the system, I experienced racism,' she says. 'That's the last place I want to work because I'm experiencing it as a minority in that system.' The midwifery program at Waminda is about building trust. 'You're building a relationship with someone who knows your fears, your hopes, your plans, your dreams,' Briggs says. Last month Waminda celebrated the 60th baby born in the program. In just 12 months, Briggs says, they have seen a marked reduction of interventions such as inductions of labour, caesareans and instrumental births: 72% of labours have been spontaneous, 94% of births happened at full term and 80% of mothers are breastfeeding. 'Mums and bubs have come out of their birthing experience with more power, more understanding and more nurturing,' she says. 'Women can make these decisions with their midwives.' Judgment and discrimination still happen in healthcare settings, says Carly David, a midwife and registered nurse who has been with Waminda for 12 years. Sign up to Five Great Reads Each week our editors select five of the most interesting, entertaining and thoughtful reads published by Guardian Australia and our international colleagues. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Saturday morning after newsletter promotion 'As a non-Aboriginal person here, my journey has also been about unlearning,' she says. 'In a mainstream public system Aboriginal women are seen as a risk. They're seen as a clinical risk, but [the mainstream system] can be a risk to Aboriginal women because they're labelled and judged. Aboriginal women thrive when they're cared for in a culturally safe way.' As we speak, David stops to take a call from a mother worrying about her new baby: high fever, feeding poorly, vomiting. She conducts a rapid assessment, asking the worried mother for details and gently advising her to take her child to the local hospital. A few decades ago, in her mother's generation, says Briggs, Aboriginal women weren't allowed to access maternity services in local hospitals. Women would give birth in segregated wards or on hospital verandas. She says women sometimes walked as far as 15km to a hospital to give birth. 'Many babies during this time were born sleeping.' The Minga Gudjaga Gunyah clinic is in a house on a tidy street just a few minutes' walk to the hospital. There are no healthcare workers rushing through clinical corridors in scrubs. Instead, the midwives and practitioners wear T-shirts from Waminda and Indigenous-owned brand Clothing the Gaps. In the waiting room there are woven baskets of full with baby clothes, and colourful paintings and shell designs created by local women decorate the clinic. There's a kitchen with a table and chairs surrounded by evidence of the program's achievements: the birth statistics and weight records of those first 60 babies. For the clinic's patients, many of whom carry trauma from negative experiences with healthcare services or past births, it does not feel like a standard doctor's or midwife's room. Kimberley Ray is a mother of five children; her second pregnancy was an unexpected set of twins. She's experienced a range of births and antenatal care: at Waminda; at the local Nowra hospital; and at Westmead hospital in Sydney. Her twins were a high-risk pregnancy so she spent a lot of time resting in bed at Westmead to prevent a preterm labour. Her family and friends were two and a half hours' drive away. 'It was really tough, very isolating and I felt really unsupported,' she says. She says caring for her newborn twins after her caesarean was a challenge with little support beyond a hospital lactation consultant. Born at 37 weeks, the baby boys were small. 'I'd just had the surgery and you're lying in the bed and it's hard to look after one baby – let alone two,' she says. 'They were just kind of like, 'Well, you just have to do it.'' During her last pregnancy, with her seven-month-old daughter Ivana, Ray experienced perinatal depression and anxiety and was supported by a Waminda midwife through her antenatal appointments and underwent a caesarean at the local hospital. 'I felt held the whole way through,' she says. 'Waminda really carried me and my daughter's spirit and soul before she even entered the world. It brought me back to the mother I was. It was life-changing.' Her midwife, well versed in her previous birth histories, gave her 'a moment to breathe' throughout the surgery, as machines beeped in a busy bustling hospital. 'Taking her there, I still feel that,' Ray says. 'Ivana is loved as if she was family.' Back at the birthing centre site, Briggs says construction will begin soon with the first births expected by the end of the year. 'We've been given the responsibility as women to take this on because it's needed, it's so desperately needed,' she says.
SBS Australia
04-06-2025
- Health
- SBS Australia
NITV Radio News - 4/6/2025
Northern Territory's Chief Minister rejects calls for an external inquiry into the death in custody of a young and mentally disabled Aboriginal man. First Nations health providers gathering in Meanjin Brisbane for annual Queensland Aboriginal and Islander Community Health conference. And in sport - the AFL says it is weeks away from finalising its new-look illicit drugs code.
News.com.au
20-05-2025
- Health
- News.com.au
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders launch a class action against Queensland Health over racial discrimination
Queensland Health have been hit with a class action over allegations of racial discrimination that claim Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people received inadequate healthcare spanning three decades. The class action alleges First Nations people were withheld or denied adequate treatment, had their concerns dismissed and received substandard medical care, which was unlawful and breached the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth). Litigators JGA Saddler filed the class action on Tuesday on behalf of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were subject to discriminatory conduct by the North West and Torres and Cape Hospital and Health Services between 1996 and 2024. JGA Saddler director Rebecca Jancauskas said the state needed to be held accountable for systematic practices that resulted in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who interacted with certain healthcare providers in Queensland receiving a lower standard of healthcare. 'We've heard heartbreaking stories of First Nations patients being ignored, misdiagnosed, or dismissed in ways that would simply not happen to other Australians,' she said. 'This case is about ensuring those voices are heard, and change is made. 'No one should be treated differently in our hospitals because of their race.' Ms Jancauskas said the claim alleged the State of Queensland failed to take sufficient action to address concerns about systematic racism in hospitals and health services over 30 years despite investigations and inquiries identifying these issues. She said there were examples of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who had sought medical care from public hospitals and health services in the North West and Cape regions but been repeatedly dismissed, which the case alleges led to children dying. 'This has sadly been the experience of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who have sought medical care from public hospitals and health services in these regions,' she said. 'This case goes beyond individual harm. It challenges a pattern of institutional racism that continues to impact the health and lives of First Nations people across Queensland.' Litigation Lending Services chief executive officer Susan Wynne said they were funding the class action to seek justice on behalf of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were failed by Queensland Health. 'Every Australian has the right to access healthcare free from discrimination,' she said. 'For too long, complaints of racism in the public health system have been minimised or ignored.'
