Just a thought – could some elements of cancer treatment be made mobile? Maybe someone wouldn’t want to leave their country but would be happier to sit in an air conditioned RV or bus to get their chemo.

And there’s also the dearth of education and resources. If someone’s illiterate and doesn’t have access to information and can’t evaluate that information, they won’t be able to advocate for themselves or their loved ones effectively.

Some way of overcoming the tyranny of distance in remote communities to provide medical services, education and good nutrition is key I think. (I don’t pretend to know how!)

I think the whole ’stolen generations’ thing is still having a huge impact on the Indigenous community and it will take a long time, and a huge shift in white attitudes before we really start to get anywhere.

The Early Childhood Intervention Programme that my children went to had assessed many indigenous children with developmental issues over the years but none of the families took up offers to attend the centre for classes. Instead the staff built relationships over time with the local Koori childcare centre and their staff. It was made really clear that the reason why no indigenous families would attend our centre was fear and distrust. There were also huge communication issues. Seemingly innocuous words like “meeting” and “appointment” were red flags for some indigenous people that their lives are going to be interfered with, that they could lose the power to make independent decisions and this is especially so in the case of their children.

Certainly the conditions that many would go ‘home’ to, even in the town camps are abysmal and the threat of infection would be extremely high. Also getting adequate nutrition, medication, etc is probably going to be rather difficult.

It would be interesting to know more about the swimming pool effect. Did they make the kids shower before using the pool, or was it the effect of the chlorinated water or the ‘bath’ effect of swimming that made the difference I wonder. It certainly suggests that the ‘no school, no pool’ should be thrown out. It’s easier to engage healthy kids in learning.

That lung cancer survival study is a pretty strong indication of systemic racism isn’t it? I noticed that the cohorts were matched for rurality so remoteness can’t really be a factor in treatment differences.

I know that chronic cannabis use can lead to psychoactive chemically mediated mental illness, but the media spin pushing all of the blame onto cannabis strikes me as more casting of the spectre of personal choices onto poor health outcomes.