Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

Could I ask the minister if he could provide detail of how the $12 million to continue the Rheumatic Fever Strategy will be spent and how the $19.1 million to continue and improve the Trachoma Elimination Program will be spent? In addition, I would like, in particular, Minister, for you to provide advice on why funding to a very successful program which treats RHD at Maningrida will be discontinued as at 30 June. You'd be aware, Minister, that Maningrida has the highest incidence of RHD per capita in Australia and amongst the highest in the world.

Mala'la Health Services Aboriginal Corporation has been funded to provide a targeted program that provides a focus on improving long-term secondary prophylaxis and a focus on new activities to prevent the incidence of acute rheumatic fever by addressing primordial causes. They provide community education, they provide screening, they have an employment and development program in which three community workers have been developed and trained to carry out education sessions and skin checks, and they employ a healthy homes coordinator, who coordinates the activities and provides support for education and community workers.

Minister, Mala'la's outcomes to date have been very encouraging. They've developed an active referral to the RHD program for clinical staff to treat clients at the clinic for scabies. This allows for home visits, which facilitates the second treatment necessary to treat mites and engage with the household for environmental assessment. Three community workers have been recruited in full-time employment, and all have undertaken training and are competent in telling the Heart Story. All schoolchildren attending school and their teachers receive regular education sessions about the Heart Story and have a good level of health literacy. More than 3,000 skin checks have been carried out and treated, if there was evidence of any skin sores or infections, with all cases of scabies treated. Over 150 homes have been checked, and maintenance issues have been reported. A partnership has been established with the West Arnhem Shire Council, Maningrida College and One Disease. Rates of compliance with secondary prophylaxis have increased significantly during the funding period: in the last quarterly report, 82 per cent of the clients on Bicillin were receiving 85 to 100 per cent of prescribed doses. None of these activities, Minister, will continue beyond 30 June without additional funding. So could you provide detail as to why funding has not been made available, and will you undertake to ensure funding is made available beyond 30 June?

Minister, I respect the fact that you have allocated funding for a working partnership with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to develop and finalise in mid-2021 the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Plan 2021-23 and the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workforce Strategic Framework and Implementation Plan 2021-2031. I was wondering, though, Minister, if you could provide details of expenditure on the initial plan, 2013-23? Can you advise on the implementation strategy for that original plan? Can you advise on the agreed implementation strategy and what has been funded? And could you advise on what funding has been made available for specific measures and what those measures have been? I understand that the plan is being reviewed, as I have previously said, but could you advise on the process being engaged for the reviewing of the plan, the timing and the consultation process, and could you advise on whether or not the central themes of the original plan will be continued? Will you advise further on the progress of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health workforce plan and the central elements of it?

Minister, I am encouraged by some of the words you have spoken to us about COVID in the bush, but could you detail for me, please, the extent to which COVID testing has been undertaken for remote aged-care patients in Aboriginal communities? Could you also advise us on the rollout of COVID vaccines across northern Australia but particularly in remote Aboriginal communities? Understanding that there have been huge issues around the reluctance of many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people—but particularly Aboriginal people in remote places—to be vaccinated, I would like to understand what public education campaigns the government is funding in that space.

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