Doctors Petition COAG to Make Indigenous Health its Top Priority
AMA President, Dr Rosanna Capolingua, today called on the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) to make the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people its number one priority.
Doctors from all over Australia, representing all medical specialties, have signed a petition calling on COAG to close the gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and other Australians.
"Today is the 40th anniversary of the referendum in which the overwhelming majority of Australians voted to treat Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as equals," Dr Capolingua said.
"Yet the health and life expectancy of Indigenous Australians remains stuck at the beginning of the last century.
"A 17-year gap in life expectancy, and the extraordinary prevalence among Indigenous Australians of diseases of poverty, are unacceptable.
"With this petition, Australian doctors from all walks of life are calling on COAG to join us in pursuing a common goal of the highest attainable standard of health as a fundamental human right for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people."
The petition, signed by delegates to the AMA National Conference in Melbourne this weekend, calls on Prime Minister John Howard, and the Premiers and Chief Ministers of all Australian States and Territories, to make Indigenous health the top priority of COAG.
"Your governments must work together to put in place action and implementation plans that will close the life expectancy gap to 10 years or less by 2015," the petition states.
"We must turn the spirit of the 1967 Referendum into a better health reality for the first Australians."