Adrian Appo
We work in the Indigenous community health and welfare sector in south-east Australia. Our peoples do not live in remote, isolated communities with few social resources and infrastructure, but in settled, established and often quite rich regions. They still, however, remain as sick and marginalised as Indigenous peoples in remote communities. The question is, why, and what are we doing about it?
In this paper, we explain our down-on-the-ground, regional approach to improving Indigenous people's health and wellbeing. Our health needs are part of a complex social and historical process that has damaged our people. A 'bandaid to body-parts' approach will not work, nor any other narrow clinical focus. The better model in health care is what Indigenous people have long believed, and Western health experts now recognise and call 'the social determinants of health approach'. We call this taking a whole of life view, and this includes the cyclical concept of life-death-life. It also includes power, namely the power to make our own decisions in health and welfare, reflecting our own community cultural and spiritual beliefs.