AHHA 2020 SIDNEY SA X AWARDS
From COVID-19 to Closing the Gap NACCHO CEO Pat Turner presenting at the AHHA 2020 Sidney Sax Award ceremony.
The success of the Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations (ACCHOs) in keeping COVID-19 out of Aboriginal and Torres
But pandemics are best defeated by communitybased action and the very ACCHO model itself is fundamentally about community control. It was no
Strait Islander communities has come as a welcome shock to most. Less than 150 Aboriginal people have contracted COVID-19 Australia-wide. Our share
surprise to us. And there was too much at stake for us to fail. Look at what happened to the Navajo. They have the highest death rate of any ethnic group
of the COVID-19 caseload was 0.5% when our share of the national population is 3.3%. This has been a wonderful achievement.
in the USA. If the virus had got into Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, the consequences would have been catastrophic with our levels of comorbidity and social disadvantage.
The Health Advocate • FEBRUARY 2021
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