SA government must act now to save lives
Gerry Georgatos
"Parents bury their children, and the whole community grieves for yet another young life lost.
These deaths are slowly tearing us apart," said Adelaide Elder Tauto Sansbury.
Earlier this year, the news media highlighted the tragedy of 8 Aboriginal deaths in 13 days in Adelaide, most of them children - from January 1 to January 13.
Mr Sansbury who attended the funerals called for the state government to develop and resource a 24 hour Aboriginal crisis centre in Adelaide. There was much promise of this as a consideration by state government however it is yet to occur.
Mr Sansbury, born at Point Pearce Aboriginal Mission on the Yorke Peninsula, has spent 25 years at the forefront of Aboriginal health, law and justice. Recently, he undertook a position with the Northern Division of General Practice to work on the federal government's Closing the Gap initiatives in Aboriginal health. Mr Tauto was the 2010 Labor candidate for the seat of Grey and needed a swing of 5% to get into the House of Representatives.
He has continued the pressure on the state government for the Crisis Centre, and the failures exposed by the Closing the Gap reports in not reaching health targets are qualifying the urgency of mounting pressure to fund the centre and other initiatives.
"The government has often been silent in the past, however this is no longer an option," said Mr Tauto.
"These 8 deaths are not of Aboriginal people who lived to a ripe old age. The funerals were not celebrations of long and productive lives. No, they were all premature deaths, some of them violent, all premature and preventable," he said.
"Of the 8 premature deaths, three were by suicide, another was violent. How can this be considered right for Aboriginal people in the 21st century, in a first world country?... The government says it's committed to closing the gap. This is not occurring. In some areas things are getting worse."
"Nothing is changing. It is not just an issue for me to raise - we need to stand up as a community and say this is unacceptable and something has to be done... Our destiny is not entirely in the hands of those in power. It's also in our hands and it's time to take control of it," said Mr Sansbury.
"The crisis centre can be the difference between life and death," he said.
Mr Sansbury said the state minister for Aboriginal Affairs has the rare opportunity to show he’s taking decisive action and a huge push from community just might convince him to take it.
"More children are ending their lives than ever before, we cannot continue to accept being haunted by constant sorrow and death." The Australian Medical Association said a major cause of this tragedy is the 'criminal underfunding' of support services. The National Indigenous Times has contacted the state minister for Aboriginal Affairs and will follow the campaign by Mr Tauto and the Adelaide community.