Roundtable on Healthcare in Custodial Settings
The roundtable was held in Canberra this week.
On 9 August, the AMA President attended a Roundtable on Healthcare in Custodial Settings, held at Parliament House and organised by Senator Lidia Thorpe.
The event brought together members from across the Parliament and their staff to hear from medical experts, people with lived experience of the custodial system, leaders and key stakeholders in the custodial health sector. The AMA’s position statement on Custodial Health, released earlier in 2023, was a focus of discussion during the event.
The roundtable discussions explored the importance of ensuring universal access to equitable and culturally safe healthcare for people in custody and the pitfalls of a lack of access to Medicare, PBS, and NDIS for people in custody.
Those in attendance canvassed what measures the federal government could undertake to improve the healthcare of people in custody. They also considered the implications of improving healthcare in custodial settings for meeting Closing the Gap targets and improving life expectancy of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
