McGinty’s Sacred Cows

"Where the bee sucks, there suck I:

In a cowslip's bell I lie;"

William Shakespeare

Until her recent Damasene conversion, Professor Fiona Stanley was a strong advocate against mandatory reporting of child abuse and her advice was accepted by Jim McGinty and the Gallop – Carpenter Government for years. Recently the Government abandoned this position and joined the other states in introducing mandatory reporting. Professor Stanley reversed her position and followed suite.

The Desert Rat has no doubt that the Telethon Institute of Child Health (Institute) and Dr Fiona Stanley have made significant contributions to medicine in WA. What the Desert Rat questions is the healthiness of McGinty’s worship mentality and eagerness to unquestioningly associate himself with the Institute and this woman of high community standing.

Professor Stanley has had the ear of all governments for two decades. The Telethon Institute of Child Health Research spends over $20 million a year. What research has it produced that Jim McGinty has applied in Aboriginal health? What long term benefits have been achieved by the Institute in field of Aboriginal health?

There needs to be some independent assessment of the value of the work of the Institute. The Desert Rat thinks that McGinty should show us that he is not an invertebrate and have an independent assessment of the effectiveness of research programs at the Institute.

The Telethon Institute of Child Health last year devoured over $20 million, a lion’s share of research funds and donations for medical research in Western Australia – possibly to the detriment of more worthy Western Australian medical research. The Desert Rat suggests that the quality of some or the Institute’s research and the benefit Aboriginal people has been very questionable and the focus quite pointless.

Dr Stanley’s emotional outburst at the coroners Court hearing in Derby would suggest to many observers that her frustration is getting the better of her and that she may be part of the problem in getting improvements Indigenous affairs and health.

Dr Stanley knows the appalling Aboriginal health statistics as well as anyone. Her passion is not in question. She emotively described the health of today’s Aboriginal children as another “stolen generation”. She called for a taskforce to be sent North immediately. She blamed non-Aboriginals for the mess. “It is not an Aboriginal problem, it is our problem” she declared.

The Desert Rat believes criticism in Indigenous issues should be constructive. Foremost, Aboriginal people need to take responsibility for their children’s education, their diet, their own drug and alcohol consumption and their government provided houses.

The continual depiction of Aboriginal people as victims by the Socialist Left and other concerned people and groups is very destructive of the Aboriginal spirit or anyone’s spirit for that matter.

One long running and expensive research program run by the Institute, told us something we already knew – that swimming pools on Aboriginal communities helped clean up skin conditions. This has been known from the Blackstone Community which had a salt water pool operating for years back in the early 1980’s. The report also said that swimming pools improved school attendance – which you would think was self evident if only kids who attended school were allowed to use them.

The Desert Rat could not see how the Institute could have compiled any objective empirical evidence for its research, as only one community with a pool had complete medical records that were rigorous enough. That was the Jigalong Community which has had resident doctors for 6 years. It did not need hundreds of thousand s of dollars and many years of research to tell us that.

The Institute claimed swimming pools improved school attendance. This was contradicted by Jigalong the only community with health records, where the Jigalong School attendance dropped from 70% to 30% in the year preceding the report. The politically correct name is now the participation rate (not school attendance or truancy). In plain English, the number of kids being truant at Jigalong School increased from about 30 to 70 a day. That left a situation where there was one staff member for every 2 students.

The Desert Rat would also point out that this appalling state of affairs happened under the watch of the sanctimonious Alan Carpenter, possibly the worst Education Minister this State has ever seen. He did not tackle the truancy problem. The Halls Creek District High School Principal Garry Smith who did tackle the problem was put into Coventry, told to take all his accumulated leave. He was effectively sacked by the Minister. The Aboriginal people in WA lost him and his very experienced teacher wife.

The Desert Rat thinks the Report following the 6 or 7 years research on the benefits of swimming pools, was not worth the paper it was written on.

The Institute’s research and report on Aboriginal education was also of doubtful benefit or value. Both reports got widespread national media coverage!

Even the best research bodies need independent review to improve their performance and encourage continued community donations. Until the Institute is peer reviewed, St John's Ambulance and others will get the Desert Rat health donations.

Is Jim McGinty our prodigal Health Minister capable of an objective and accountable approach to medical research?