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In her report Investigation into healthcare provision for Aboriginal people in Victorian prisons tabled on 6 March 2024, Victorian Ombudsman Deborah Glass finds the lack of input by Victoria’s First Nations people into healthcare policy in prisons is having devastating effects on the health outcomes for them.
“Despite commitments at every level of government to Aboriginal peoples’ self-determination and Aboriginal-led solutions, the experiences of Aboriginal people in prison are often missing from discussions about policies that affect them,” Ms Glass said.
In the last ten years, the Ombudsman has tabled ten reports looking into prisons, but this investigation concerns a specific group of people and a specific issue about which there is much more to be done.
“Healthcare is the issue raised most often with the Ombudsman by people in prison and their advocates. And while healthcare is an issue for all people in prison, the available evidence shows that Aboriginal people suffer worse and more complex health outcomes than non-Aboriginal people in prison and in the community. I launched this investigation on that basis,” Ms Glass said.
For more than three decades, various authorities have looked into the reasons for the poor health outcomes of First Nations people and deaths in custody.
“These reviews made multiple recommendations to improve healthcare in prisons, some repeated over the years, and various Governments made multiple commitments to implement them. Yet little has changed, or at best, not enough,” Ms Glass said.
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Source: The Victorian Ombudsman, Australia
