Addressing medical racism in Australia

To the Hon. Brad Hazzard,

My name is Jo Lorenz of Sydney, NSW, Australia.

Respect for culture and heritage is the provenance of personal strength, resilience, happiness and identity — with this strength and identity being inherently linked to our health and wellbeing. However, the intergenerational traumas of colonisation and enslavement — as well as ongoing white erasure — continues to condemn the culture of black, indigenous and people of colour, and this condemnation of culture feeds our constitutionally racist practices, as evidenced by the repulsive racial disparities within our healthcare systems.

Not all racism is overt — unconscious bias is a silent killer — and when our establishment and corresponding medical institutions operate in a manner that only serves the ‘majority culture’, they are acutely operating against those not within that dominant culture.

This systematic racism is bolstered by institutional policies and unconscious bias based on negative stereotypes and thus identifying and enacting effectual strategies to eradicate racial inequities in health status and medical care should be made a national priority.

According to the ‘Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’, the life expectancy of First Nations Australians is estimated to be 8.6 years lower than that of the non-Indigenous population for males and 7.8 years for females.

Effectively addressing the inequality in our universal healthcare requires: new initiatives to appropriately train healthcare professionals; increased and circumspect legislation; and the recruitment of more healthcare workers from within the black, indigenous and people of colour — or indeed all marginalised — communities.

If every healthcare worker across our country had appropriate cultural training — and consquently also understood the legislative ramifications of neglecting that training — then levels of care and compassion would not be compromised.

It is a national embarrassment to have such substantial and prevailing racism in our healthcare systems — and so I urge you, Minister, to act accordingly to help save Indigenous Australian lives.

Yours Sincerely,

Jo Lorenz