Media Statement - 5th November 2007
A Rudd Labor Government will invest up to $20 million to upgrade remote health clinics; expand sexual assault counselling and extend renal dialysis services to combat diabetes and kidney diseases in the Northern Territory.
Federal Labor’s $20 million health boost will improve access to vital health services for thousands of Territorians, especially Indigenous people living in remote communities.
After 11 years of neglect by the Howard Government, indigenous communities in remote areas of the Northern Territory are in desperate need of improved health care.
If elected a Rudd Labor Government will invest:
- $10 million to upgrade and expand remote health care facilities;
- $5 million to establish satellite renal dialysis facilities in remote communities; and
- $4.6 million for sexual assault counselling in remote areas.
This builds on Federal Labor’s commitment to a $261 million plan to improve Indigenous kids’ health and early development including $10.3 million to tackle rheumatic fever.
Federal Labor will also deliver $15.9 million to expand alcohol detoxification and rehabilitation services across the Territory - funding the Howard Government promised but failed to deliver. Federal Labor will also make tackling and reducing trachoma in Indigenous communities a priority.
$10 million for remote health
clinics
Federal Labor will invest $10
million to upgrade and improve vital remote health clinics in the
Northern Territory. Remote health clinics in the NT
provide a range of important health services to people living in remote
communities – particularly primary care.
$4.6 million to expand sexual
assault services
The Little Children Are Sacred report
highlighted the lack of intensive and sustained counselling and support in the
NT that is needed to help survivors and their families recover from sexual
abuse. This support is also critical to
breaking the cycle of violence, and even preventing victims themselves from
becoming perpetrators later in life.
Federal Labor will invest $4.6 million to fund four two-person sexual assault counselling teams. The teams will work with victims and their families, local health and child protection services and will be supported by the Sexual Assault Referral Centres located in major centres.
$5 million for extra renal dialysis
facilities
The
Northern Territory has some of the highest
rates of renal disease in the country. Federal Labor will contribute $5
million towards the establishment of satellite renal dialysis facilities in the
Territory to improve access to renal dialysis services for remote communities.
This will bring more renal dialysis services closer to the people who need them in remote areas, making it easier for them to access much needed health treatment. Locations for satellite renal units will be determined in consultation with the NT Government and Territory health providers and communities.
$15.9 million for alcohol treatment
In June 2006 the Howard Government
promised $15.9 million towards alcohol rehabilitation and diversion services.
Over 16 months later that funding has still not been delivered to the
Northern Territory despite overwhelming need.
A Rudd Labor Government will deliver this $15.9 million so that much needed alcohol rehabilitation services can be immediately implemented.
Federal Labor will prioritise the expansion of alcohol detoxification and rehabilitation services across the Territory to deliver more detoxification beds and more workers to treat people suffering alcohol addiction.
Federal Labor will also use available funding to expand sobering up shelters in Katherine and Tennant Creek, so that alcohol abusers can be removed from family situations.
Tackling third-world diseases in
Indigenous communities
Federal Labor is committed to
tackling third world diseases in Indigenous communities such as rheumatic fever
and trachoma – a disease that has been eradicated in many other
nations.
Acute rheumatic fever is almost unknown in developed countries, yet rates in some Indigenous communities, including in the Northern Territory, are amongst the highest in the world.
In 2004, there were 1,133 cases of chronic rheumatic heart disease among Indigenous Australians in the Top End and Central Australia. Up to 50 per cent of children in some Indigenous communities have the eye condition trachoma, another preventable infectious disease caused by bacteria almost unknown in other developed communities.
This is clearly unacceptable. Federal Labor has committed $10.3 million to tackling rheumatic fever through the establishment of a National Coordination Unit to coordinate efforts to tackle Rheumatic Heart Fever and to set up program sites that will focus on providing proper diagnosis and improving access to necessary antibiotics.
Using the health funding allocated under the Northern Territory intervention, Federal Labor will make tackling trachoma in Indigenous communities a priority, by establishing regional screening teams to detect and treat trachoma in affected Indigenous communities, and by helping to prevent trachoma by encouraging proper face-washing.
A national commitment to ‘Close the
Gap’
The
life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians remains
one of the starkest indicators of inequality in Australian
society.
Federal Labor has committed to closing the 17-year gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians within the next generation. Federal Labor will begin with a commitment to the generation of Indigenous children who are being born now.
As part of our overall commitment to close the gap in life expectancy, a Rudd Labor Government will establish two new national objectives:
- To halve the gap in mortality rates between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children under the age of five within a decade; and
- To halve the gap in reading, writing and numeracy achievement within a decade by introducing a comprehensive package focusing on Indigenous children's early years.
Federal Labor has a $261 million plan to improve Indigenous kids’ health and early development. This plan includes comprehensive funding for child and maternal health services, early development and parenting support, and literacy and numeracy in the early years to help achieve these goals. Federal Labor’s plan includes a $75 million contribution from State and Territory governments.
In addition, Federal Labor will commit $20 million to improve health services in remote parts of the NT builds on Labor’s $10 million commitment to build a GP Super Clinic in Palmerston.
These commitments form part of Labor’s $2.5 billion plan to improve health and hospital services around Australia. Labor has also committed to support the $183 million in health funding that has been announced as part of the Northern Territory intervention.