New health service for the tropics

Chips Mackinolty reports from Darwin

Amid all the doom and gloom about the appaling state of indigenous health, there was good news last month as the Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal and Tropical Health was launched in Darwin.
The Centre aims to succeed where generations of health research have failed - to fully involve indigenous people in the initiation, design and carriage of health research. Chairperson of the Centre, Dr Lowitja O'Donoghue said at the launch that "research must serve the interests of the Aboriginal and other people living in the tropics".
"Embedded in this approach is the principle of partnership among and between researchers; and among and between the people whose interests the Centre is to serve.
"Furthermore, of fundamental importance is the process of training and participation in the research we are to carry out.
"This process is not going to be merely a "make work" program in which, once again, training is merely seen as an add-on to fill the Centre with a few black faces," she said.
"We are committed to having indigenous scientists working in this partnership from a position of equality, and serving mutual interests."
The Centre, opened by federal minister for health Michael Wooldridge, is a partnership between Aboriginal-controlled health services (Congress in Alice Springs and Danila Dilba in Darwin); the Menzies School of Health Research; the Northern Territory and Flinders Universities and Territory Health Services.
Dr O'Donoghue said the Centre was already involved in research into biomedical issues as well as delivery of health services to people living in the tropics.