The Wire

A new report has found that expenditure on health services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people has increased in recent years. But the Australian Insitute of Health and Welfare, which released the data, says more money doesn’t necessarily mean more services for the Indigenous population. For every one dollar spent on the health of a non-Indigenous person, a dollar eighteen is spent on an Aboriginal person, according to the Institute’s report. The study also shows that spending on Indigenous health services rose from 1.4 billion dollars in the period between 1998 and 99, to 1.8 billion dollars between 2001 and 2002. But Head of the AIHW’s Health and Welfare Expenditure Unit Tony Hynes says the increase is relatively small. He also says the figures do not take into account the cost of regional services or the fact that the health of Aboriginal people is generally of a lower standard.

AIHW health expenditure report