Trauma of land loss ‘contributes to Indigenous health gap’

Australia must increase its number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander doctors, nurses and medical researchers to provide health services that are relevant to local communities, federal Indigenous health minister Ken Wyatt has said.

Wyatt (above), who is Australia’s first Indigenous federal cabinet minister, said the health needs of Indigenous communities were complex and linked to trauma that “reaches across generations”.

In his opening speech to the fifth National Indigenous Drug and Alcohol Conference in Adelaide, Wyatt said “significant health impacts have resulted from displacement from family and country, institutionalisation, racism, abuse and neglect”.