Australian Medical Association

AMA President, Dr Steve Hambleton, today encouraged Indigenous medical students to apply for the 2012 AMA Indigenous Peoples’ Medical Scholarship.

Dr Hambleton said that an important part of closing the Indigenous health and life expectancy gap is to build an adequate workforce that includes Indigenous doctors and health professionals.

To encourage and assist Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people intending to complete a medical degree at an Australian university.

Applicants for this scholarship must be Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders.  For the purposes of this scholarship, an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander is someone who is of Australian Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent, or who identifies as an Australian Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and is accepted as such by the community in which he or she lives or has lived.  Applicants will be asked to provide a letter from an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander community organisation supporting their claim.

To be awarded a scholarship, applicants must be currently enrolled at an Australian Medical School, and have successfully completed their first year of a medical degree. However, students who are currently in their first year of medicine are eligible to apply. In awarding the scholarship, preference will be given to applicants who do not already hold any other substantial scholarship.

Applications close Tuesday January 2012.

AMA President Dr Steve Hambleton talks about asylum seekers, Indigenous health and Government cuts to GP mental health services. He discusses his recent trip to Broome, where he met with the Kimberley Aboriginal Services Council.

This submission to the Senate Community Affairs Reference Committee makes recommendations to improve the access of Indigenous people across Australia to affordable medicines.

AMA President, Dr Steve Hambleton, said today that there is a need for a long-term approach to closing the gap in Indigenous health and life expectancy.

Dr Hambleton was commenting on media coverage of a Department of Finance report that concludes that Indigenous expenditure by successive Governments over many years has failed to deliver meaningful outcomes.  The report is said to be critical of complicated programs, and excessive red tape and layers of bureaucracy, and suggests wiser and better targeted spending.

AMA Vice President, Professor Geoffrey Dobb, said today that more strategic use of Indigenous health funding could improve access to the most appropriate health services for Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders.

Commenting on the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) report on Indigenous health expenditure, Prof Dobb said that it is not just a matter of more funding for Indigenous health, it is just as important to ensure that the funding is strategically targeted to ensure that Indigenous people get the right care in the right place at the right time.

The AMA welcomes the Prime Minister’s visit to the Northern Territory to inspect town camps and other communities to gain a first hand understanding of the range of social and economic factors that continue to adversely affect the health of Indigenous people.

AMA President, Dr Steve Hambleton, said today that he was encouraged by the Prime Minister’s comments that she would be working with Indigenous communities to ‘hear their voices about their views on the world and what works in their communities’.

A Canberra-based Indigenous researcher’s moving story of her son’s battle with mental illness and a Kalgoorlie-based Indigenous health worker’s animated story of a “tooth fairy” who educates Indigenous children about healthy lifestyles have won this year’s Dr Ross Ingram Memorial Competition.

Ms Lindy Moffatt, an Indigenous Visiting Research Fellow at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), won the essay prize for her article Mental illness or spiritual illness: what should we call it?

In the essay, Ms Moffatt, a Wakka Wakka woman from Queensland, explored the hypothesis that the suffering of trauma and pain within Indigenous communities is passed down through generations, with transgenerational trauma contributing to mental illness.

The AMA has made a submission to the Productivity Commission supporting the introduction of a government funded system of comprehensive care and support for people with long-term, significant disabilities. The AMA also supports the introduction of a no-fault national injury insurance scheme.

A young Aboriginal man who wants to help reduce the high rates of chronic disease in Indigenous communities has won the AMA Indigenous Peoples’ Medical Scholarship for 2011.

Murray Haar was awarded the scholarship in Sydney today by AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce.