People on remote communities often ask us ‘Why do so many Aboriginal people have kidney problems?’
There doesn’t seem to be one reason for this.
Western medicine says that the story is made up of many things including;
- Being born too early (with little kidneys)
- Living in crowded, broken housing
- Eating bad food and drinking soft drink
- From skin infections which make your kidneys work harder
- Smoking
- Diabetes and high blood pressure
But this means there are lots of things we can do in and with communities to reduce the incidence and impact of kidney disease.
We can:
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- Help young women to have good health care and antenatal care when they are pregnant
- Provide good support for young mothers and children
- Support strong leadership on communities so that people have agency over their lives
- Help fix up houses and plant trees
- Make sure houses have flushing toilets, running water, working showers and that people have access to health hardware like washing machines
- Encourage good community stores with quality, affordable fresh food
- Find ways to get exercise on communities in an affordable and safe way
- Help families to look after each other
- Keep law and culture STRONG
- Look after country and teach our grandkids
- Encourage everyone to go to the clinic for regular check-ups for diabetes and high blood pressure
- Take your tablets!
- Make sure drinking water is available
- Encourage people to stop smoking