By Deb Sorensen
Darwin -- Danila Dilba Aboriginal Health Clinic, Darwin's only Aboriginal-run and controlled clinic, has been given temporary reprieve from an ongoing funding crisis. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Commission (ATSIC) announced on March 27 that emergency funding of $84,000 would be provided by to the clinic. Before that, Danila Dilba faced closing its doors and laying off its staff.
ATSIC's hand was forced by a demonstration organised by Danila Dilba's staff and held outside the ATSIC offices in Darwin on March 24. Despite repeated requests for ATSIC councillors, elected by the Aboriginal community to represent their interests, to come out of the building and address the rally, they declined and instead locked the doors of the public office.
Speakers at the rally called on their ATSIC councillors, and in particular the zone commissioner, John Patterson, to publicly state their position on funding for Danila Dilba.
Since 1991, when Danila Dilba was established with funding from the National Aboriginal Health Strategy, ongoing funding has been a problem. Although the clinic provided vital services, seeing between 1000 to 1200 people per month from all over the Territory, it has been unable to secure a stable and permanent source of funding.
In the past Danila Dilba has been funded by governments as well as by ATSIC, but there has been no commitment from any of these sources that the clinic's doors will always be open to Aboriginal people. The $84,000 just provided by ATSIC will see the clinic through only to mid-year.
Roseanne Brennan, who is on the executive of Danila Dilba, told the March 24 rally that the ongoing funding crisis was “totally ludicrous” and that it “must stop”. At a time when the terrible state of Aboriginal health is widely recognised, Brennan said, workers at the Clinic don't need the “added stress” of not knowing whether they will be paid for their vital work or whether Danila Dilba will be able to keep its doors open in the long term.
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