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Cabbage Tree community has top immunisation rate |
 Health Minister Andrew Refshauge is surrounded by children from Cabbage Tree Island's primary school. They later performed the legend of Goanna Headland in Evans Head for the community and guests at the launch of an immunisation video and manual.
With one of the highest immunisation rates in the country, the Bundjalung people of Cabbage Tree Island on the North Coast of NSW are in a position to be held up as a role model to all Australians. So says Northern Rivers Public Health Unit director, Dr John Beard.
“Not only are they a role model for Aboriginal communities, but they have managed to achieve rates that far exceed the national average in the broader community,” Dr Beard said.
The overall rate for the island, population 390, was about 89 per cent and every child in the primary school of 17 children was fully vaccinated, he said. This figure represented a significant achievement, especially compared to the rate in the non-Aboriginal community, which was estimated to be as low as 53 per cent.
Dr Beard was speaking after the recent launch on Cabbage Tree Island of an immunisation video and manual, designed for use in Aboriginal communities, by the NSW Health Minister, Dr Andrew Refshauge.
The project was developed following a 1992 study of the immunisation status of Aboriginal children in the North Coast region, which indicated an overall documented rate of 27 per cent, almost half the national average in the non-Aboriginal community.
Dr Beard, one of the authors of the original report, said the improvement in immunisation rates on Cabbage Tree Island had been achieved since the Jali Primary Health Post opened there two years ago.
“These immunisation rates will provide protection from a range of vaccine preventable diseases, which are prevalent on the North Coast at quite high rates. There are obvious health benefits to the community in the short and long term,” Dr Beard said.
“If we could get immunisation rates to these levels in the wider community, then we would see a huge drop in the incidence of serious childhood diseases.”
Other reasons for the high rate, according to the island's doctor, Matea Gillies, have to do with the support of tribal Elders and the community. Important too are the regular visits by three community nurses and an Aboriginal health worker, who keep track of immunisations.
Dr Gillies, himself part Maori, spends one day a week on the island. Before he started there in 1993, the community did not have its own doctor. Until the health centre was built, he had to work out of the back of his car and underneath people's houses.
“I do think one of the important things is trying to get the service to them,” Dr Gillies said.
“You can argue that everyone should be responsible for their own health and sort themselves out. But it has been shown with disadvantaged groups that the best thing to do is to take the service to them.”
Cabbage Tree Island was a good example of this belief, he said.
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