We told you it wasn’t just a bad flu season
March 14, 2018Notice of Annual General Meeting
April 13, 2018Access to healthcare is critical to the wellbeing of all Australians and removing barriers to it is important, AMA (NSW) President, Prof Brad Frankum, said.
“It is essential that hospitals and all healthcare facilities make an effort to provide safe and welcoming spaces to facilitate access to care.
“Public hospitals try to do this in a range of ways, including the design of spaces, the provision of information in different languages, access to translators and other services to ensure patients get the best from their healthcare.
“For this reason, AMA (NSW) applauds the NSW Government for encouraging hospitals to ensure that they consider the needs of Indigenous patients in creating a safe and welcoming environment,” Prof Frankum said.
“Indigenous patients continue to suffer unacceptably poorer health outcomes compared to other Australians.
“For the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population born in 2010–2012, life expectancy was estimated to be 10.6 years lower than that of the non-Indigenous population.
“Indigenous patients are over-represented in requiring public hospital services.
“In 2013-14, there were 392,142 public hospital emergency department presentations by Indigenous people, accounting for 5.4% of all such presentations,” Prof Frankum said.
“As a doctor working in south western Sydney and at an Aboriginal Medical Service, I see every day the barriers to accessing healthcare faced by our Indigenous patients.
“Hospitals are complex, overwhelming places and care is too often fragmented.
“For this reason, everyone involved in healthcare has an obligation to break down the barriers to accessing care and to improve health outcomes.
“It is disappointing to see those who clearly do not have the same personal experiences of navigating our healthcare system making inappropriate comments about such an important health policy,” Prof Frankum said.
Media contact: Lachlan Jones 0419 402 955