Health

Hospitals to have ‘designated Aboriginal waiting rooms’ for patients

Apr 03, 2018

NSW hospitals will have designated rooms for indigenous patients. Source: Pixabay.

Hospitals across New South Wales have been told to build “designated Aboriginal waiting rooms” or a “culturally appropriate space” for indigenous patients and their families, in an effort to stop them leaving before receiving treatment.

The policy, issued by the state’s health department following research into the issue, also recommends Aboriginal artwork be hung on walls to “provide links to culture and community”.

It comes after research by NSW Health found Aboriginal patients are more likely to leave hospital before being treated than non-Aboriginal patients. The policy explains: “An important contributor to this issue is Aboriginal patients feeling safe to stay and wait.”

In order to increase comfort and a feeling of security, it says building a separate, designated room could be a valuable solution: “If available in the hospital, relatives may access the designated Aboriginal waiting room for families and carers. If no room exists, a culturally appropriate space within the local hospital should be identified.”

However, it’s sparked a mixed reaction, and while Aboriginal leader Warren Mundine applauded the work being done to improve healthcare access, he warned having separate rooms could lead to “segregation”.

Speaking to Starts at 60, Mundine said: “I grew up in the late 1960s when hospitals were segregated. We have to be careful not to go back to those days here.

“Health systems should be provided to everyone, and it should be comfortable for everyone. We all know going to hospital isn’t comfortable at the best of times… I remember breaking my arm once in a motorbike accident, and lying there – it wasn’t a nice environment to be in. They need to provide comfort for everyone.”

Meanwhile, NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard insisted on radio station 2GB that the policy reflects “national standards”, adding: “It isn’t mandatory in the sense that they’ve got to do it. It’s mandatory in the sense that you’ve got to think about what is culturally appropriate.”

But his argument was slammed by host Alan Jones, who said: “Brad, this is absurd. This is apartheid. Where does the Anglo-Saxon Australian fit in? If you’ve got a culturally appropriate space in every hospital emergency department will we have a culturally appropriate space and designated aboriginal waiting room in every pub?

“Will we have one in every school?”

According to the Daily Telegraph, a trial testing these changes reportedly found the number of Aboriginal patients who “did not wait” fell by half following improvements to the “emergency department environment”.

Meanwhile, the Public Health Association of Australia has backed the policy, saying it tackles fears of “institutionalised racism” in Australia’s hospitals.

Vice-president Carmen Parter told the publication: “People need to recognise … around the stolen generations – hospital institutions were part of that whole process of taking children from families so (there’s) deep ingrained distrust in communities around that.”

The policy will bring NSW in line with the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare’s published guidance titled: ‘Improving Care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People’.