Didgeridoo and Dancers celebrate NAIDOC with Family Planning NSW in Dubbo
Date 09 July 2007
Midday Monday 9 July 221 Darling Street
Working for better Aboriginal reproductive and sexual health
With the didgeridoo and dancers, Family Planning NSW (FPNSW) will celebrate NAIDOC week at Dubbo's Centre on Darling Street on Monday 9 July.
They will welcome representatives of Aboriginal health and medical services and the community. As well as celebrating Aboriginal culture and life, the Centre hopes to encourage more Aboriginal people to visit and use the Centre.
At a barbeque lunch Shirkiria Dunn and James Pomfret will tell of their experiences as young Aboriginal people growing up in and around Dubbo.
Family Planning NSW's Dubbo Centre opened in May 2001. Health Promotion Officer, Christine Ohrin was appointed in 2005 bringing her extensive experience in the community. She was previously a member of the Women's Advisory Group and has worked to build partnerships with the Aboriginal community and FPNSW service since 2003.
Family Planning has gone about establishing a service for the Aboriginal community. Explains Christine Ohrin, "There was wide consultation and it took a long time. But that was the right way to begin. This year we have more than doubled the number of Aboriginal women visiting the clinic for checkups and advice," she says.
According to Christine Ohrin, communities in remote and isolated areas are disadvantaged and have poorer health outcomes, with high teenage pregnancy rates and high STIs rates.
Women in the Australian Aboriginal population have higher rates of cervical cancer than the wider community. The mortality rate due to cervical cancer among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women aged 20-69 years in the 2001-2004 period was 9.9 per 100,000 women and was 4.7 times higher than that of other Australian women in the same age range (1). In the Dubbo area the percentage of women having pap smears is more than 9% lower than the State average.
"Like women everywhere" explains Christine Ohrin, "they can have difficulty accessing doctors and nurses who they feel comfortable discussing intimate issues with."
"Talking about sex can be taboo in our community and that leads to all sorts of problems," says Christine Ohrin. "It's time for there to be open and informed discussion about sex, pregnancy and STIs."
In 2005, the teenage pregnancy of Indigenous women (69 babies per 1000 women) was more than four times the fertility rate of all teenage women (16 babies per 1000 women) (2). Chlamydia rates in the Greater Western Area Health Service were 177.3 per 100,000 compared with 145.8 for New South Wales as a whole, between 2003 and 2005 (3). This is one of the highest rates in the State.
The Dubbo Centre has already piloted a health literacy programme for young people in rural and regional NSW, and an innovative health information card for young people so they have all the right places and people to contact when they need support. These projects were funded with the assistance of the Rio Tinto Aboriginal Foundation.
Footnotes
(1) Based on Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Cervical Screening in Australia 2004-2005. (Only Indigenous mortality data from Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory are considered to be statistically reliable. Therefore, cervical cancer mortality data used in this analysis are confined to these jurisdictions.)
(2) Based pm ABS Births 2005.
(3) Based on NSW communicable diseases notifications 2003 - 2005 Public Health Division, The health of the people of New South Wales - Report of the Chief Health Officer. NSW Division 2006.
For further information
Contact Patrick Duley
Phone 0403 091 312
