Lloyd Diggins
Indigenous Health Scholarship
University of Notre Dame, WA
Doctor of Medicine
Scholarship Awarded 2020 – 2021
Sponsored by:
Rotary Club of Melville
How will I contribute to improving Indigenous health as a qualified medical practitioner or health worker?
I am Lloyd Diggins, a Wongi Aboriginal man who grew up on Whadjuk and Wardandi Noongar countries where I am accepted. I am an active member of my communities. I am currently placed in Kununurra as part of the Rural Clinical School of WA. I have progressed through the first two years of the Doctor of Medicine course and am currently completing the courses’ third year.
After high school I studied physiotherapy which allows to work in hospitals in Western Australia. I had not anticipated that in my physiotherapy career I would get the opportunity to work with many Aboriginal patients, but due to being so over represented in healthcare systems I had great experiences treating my own people. At work I was discouraged by senior physiotherapy staff from combining my culture with my physiotherapy work, and I became frustrated by the experiences.
I was encouraged to move to the Northern Territory by my nurse sister, as she found that she was supported in providing culturally appropriate healthcare in Darwin, and she enjoyed living within and caring larger Aboriginal population. Whilst working at Royal Darwin hospital I was offered the opportunity to develop the Allied Health service at Gove District Hospital in East Arnhem Land. During that service development position, I demonstrated that the area need a full time physiotherapist and a full time dietitian, but what I found was that the area really just needed another General Practitioner for prevention of disease progression to improve access to dialysis and to provide a palliative care service. I had also fallen in love with the Yolngu people and the Gove region, and I thought that if I was going to live in Arnhem Land for the rest of my career I ought to ‘duck into town’ and pick up a degree that would let me provide the type of help that the local people needed.
Since commencing medicine in WA I have continued to work for the WA Country Health Service alongside my immediate and extended family. I have seen how a lack of access to palliative care in rural and remote areas is devastating to Aboriginal people dying away form their land and families. I have seen how young people are growing up without their parents because dialysis is not accessible to Aboriginal people in rural areas. I have also seen the importance of an Aboriginal medical workforce, where my improved confidence in combining my culture with my healthcare provision has reduced other staff’s racism and improved Aboriginal people’s confidence and engagement in healthcare.
Current Progressive Report
As you are aware I am currently completing my final year of the degree. I was given the opportunity to be involved in a pilot project through Notre Dame and the Rural Clinical School of WA where I and three other students are completing their final year living in the Kimberley region of WA for the first time in the university’s history. I have been really fortunate to continue to learn medicine in rural Western Australia, whereas previous students have been required to return to Boorloo (Perth) to complete the equivalent year. I have been able to consolidate my learning and gain new skills and knowledge in Rubibi (Broome) at the hospital, as well as in towns and remote communities throughout the Kimberley region. I have developed lifelong friendships with with local Aboriginal doctors like Dr Kim Isaacs who have continued to help me understand my role as an Aboriginal person working within a western healthcare model.
I have also developed a new awareness of the impact that politics can have on access to adequate healthcare and the quality of basic amenities for Aboriginal people, as well as my responsibility to use the voice that medicine has given me. I have grown increased confidence to speak out about issues that disproportionately or exclusively affect Aboriginal Australians but are ignored due to bureaucracy. Visiting service providers refuse to drink the water in Balgo community due to the widespread belief that the water is unsafe for consumption, but due to political friction no one will address the community’s water quality and consequently Balgo locals have no option but to feed it to their children.
Being able to learn more about these issues has been a huge benefit of spending this final year of medicine living in rural WA and without the support that Rotary Australia has provided I wouldn’t have been able to do so – the pilot project that has allowed me to study in Rubibi has not received proper funding from the Universities, and its thanks to Rotary Australia that I have been able to complete all of my medical clinical education in rural WA. This scholarship and the work of Rotary Australia is allowing Aboriginal Australians to take control of Aboriginal health. Unlike non-Aboriginal people working in the Aboriginal health sector, we have a vested interest to work ourselves out of a job by improving Aboriginal health outcomes.