The Aboriginal Medical Service Western Sydney released this statement on June 26.
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The Aboriginal Medical Service Western Sydney (AMSWS), an Aboriginal community-controlled health service based in Mt Druitt, is being forced to shut down after the federal government decided to stop its funding from July 1.
All funds allocated to AMSWS have been used in the delivery of health services to the Aboriginal community of western Sydney.
The decision to cease all federal funding effectively means that the service will have to shut down. It will leave thousands of community members without access to essential services and put pressure on local hospital services and systems.
AMSWS services the largest Aboriginal population in Australia. It has more than 11,000 active patients from greater Western Sydney and the Blue Mountains.
AMSWS has been chronically underfunded for many years and has operated on much less operational grant funding compared with other urban Aboriginal community-controlled health services, which receive operational grants three or four times that of AMSWS, servicing significantly smaller populations.
AMSWS provides a range of essential services for the community, including mental health and social services, in addition to the GP services. Many of AMSWS’ patients will not be able to access the variety of services they require. This, in effect, risks the lives of many chronically ill patients and will have dire consequences for the health and wellbeing of many community members.
It will also lead to the loss of 96 staff, most of whom are Aboriginal people and who have provided a monumental services to the community for the past 28 years.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health said the decision was due to the significant debts of the organisation. But the spokesperson failed to mention that there was a lengthy period from September last year when funds were withheld from the AMSWS, which nevertheless continued to pay the salaries of a significant number of staff.
A spokesperson from AMSWS said: “This decision by the government will have an adverse effect on the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal clients of the community of Western Sydney who choose to use AMSWS. We call on the Australian community as a whole to act now to save these essential Aboriginal community-controlled services.”
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