Death in the Outback

Healthcare in Australia’s Aboriginal communities is hindered by a long history of racial discord between very different cultures. Georgina Kenyon discovers the story of one young woman who died in the 1980s, and asks whether anything has changed since. The names in this story have been changed to protect the source’s privacy.

I sit with my friend Kay on her old ‘Queenslander’ verandah, half-listening to the radio. It’s that half-hour just before it gets dark in the tropical north of Australia. The fruit bats are waking each other up with their chatter and the curlews join in, screeching and rustling about in the dry leaf-litter below us on the lawn.
Kay holds up her hand, drawing my attention back to the radio. I catch fragments of a report about complaints from Australians whose children and grandchildren were taken away from their families to live in institutions and in foster care. Some have since been emotionally abused and physically assaulted. It’s shocking news, of course. Dreadful.
Kay turns up the volume on the radio.
Almost 30 per cent of children in care in Australia come from an Aboriginal background, the reporter continues: “The Stolen Generation – when Aborigines were forcibly taken away from their families – may not just be a shameful part of Australia’s history…”
Kay’s face looks contemplative and sad.
“Is this seriously happening, in 2014?” I wonder. Most Australians are aware of the Stolen Generation, when it was legal for the government to take Aboriginal children away from their families. But this forced separation, I thought, had ended decades before.
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