A MOUNT Isa Aboriginal nursing student wants to know what opportunities are available for Indigenous people in the rural health sector.
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Mount Isa Centre for Rural and Remote Health (MICRRH) student Lila Pigliafiori may learn the answer when she attends the Congress of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nurses and Midwives conference on the Gold Coast.
Ms Pigliafiori attends the three day conference due to a scholarship she has received. A topic at the congress will be on how to improve the health rate of the nation’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.
The 2017 Closing the Gap report said the most recent figures from 2013 showed a gap of 10.6 years between Indigenous and non-Indigenous men, and 9.5 years between Indigenous and non-Indigenous women.
“I have seen many members of my family, including my family, pass away at very early ages and that’s when I realised that maybe those stats are right,” Ms Pigliafiori said.
“That’s why we need Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nurses, we know the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people we work with.
“We know what their cultures are like, we know why they live the way they do, we are the ones that have the ability to help them more effectively.
“I definitely believe the health situation will get better, we just need more policy and more people on the ground to influence that policy so our government can increase those services in those communities.”
Ms Pigliafiori began studying nursing in 2012 to care for her mother. It is then she looked carefully at Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health statistics. She took a break after a year for family reasons and returned to study this year.
She aims to graduate next year and to obtain a nursing position in Mount Isa.
MICRRH director Sabina Knight said there was a growing number of Indigenous nurses and midwives in the country – especially in remote areas.
Yet the number still needed to increase.
“It’s important to us at MICRRH that some of our James Cook University’s Indigenous nursing and midwifery students have the opportunity to experience the conference and network with fellow students, and be inspired by the nurses who drive this organization,” Professor Knight said.