Prominent Australians including the Prime Minister are depicted on dialysis in a Darwin exhibition about the escalating rate of kidney disease among Aboriginal people.
Artists Chips Mackinolty and Therese Ritchie said the 14 prints, also featuring John Howard and Cate Blanchett, were a call to action for treating and preventing the disease, which is especially prevalent in remote Indigenous communities.
“Aboriginal people are always being depicted as poor buggers and victims because their life experiences are very grim,” said Mr Mackinolty, a well-known Darwin identity who has worked with Aboriginal primary health care services.
“This is about turning the tables to see how it would be if prominent influential people had end-stage kidney disease, and they all had to spend five hours a day three days a week on dialysis.
“Aboriginal people in their early 20s are on dialysis. Short of a transplant it is a death sentence.”
‘Australia’s home-grown horror’ a leading cause of death
In April this year Kidney Health Australia said diabetes was “out of control”.
From 2001 to 2008 the number of Indigenous Australians receiving treatment for end-stage kidney disease increased by 72 per cent.
A recent ABS survey found Indigenous adults experience diabetes 20 years earlier than non-Indigenous adults. One in five Aboriginal adults had chronic kidney disease.
Aboriginal people living in remote areas were 2.5 times more likely to have chronic kidney disease, compared with those in urban areas.
Kidney-related disease kills more people – both Indigenous and non-Indigenous – each year than breast cancer, prostrate cancer or even road traffic accidents.
“We call it Australia’s home-grown horror,” Ms Ritchie said.
“The Prime Minister says the country is on high alert for terrorism. This is a high alert situation.”
The most pressing need is in Central Australia, where the number of people on dialysis tripled to 209 during the 10 years to 2009.
The 2011 Central Australian Renal Study looked at problems facing the Northern Territory, South Australia, and Western Australian governments allocating resources to increasing numbers of dialysis patients in Central Australia.
“Patients form cross-border areas were coming into Alice Springs and overwhelming the Northern Territory’s capacity to deal with the issue,” Mr Mackinolty said.
“WA and South Australia were making people go to Adelaide or Perth for dialysis when they lived much much closer to Central Australia.”
The report’s recommendations have not yet been acted upon.
“I’d like to see the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs pull those state jurisdictions together now,” Mr Mackinolty said.
“It’s crazy not to do stuff now about prevention, to deal with the situation in rational, sensible and compassionate way now, rather than waiting for current crisis to spiral out of control.
“The last thing we need is another research report about kidney health in remote Australia.
“The data has been around for years but the problem has been getting worse and worse – we never quite catch up.
“We need to get stuff happening on the ground about community-based dialysis, about prevention, about making sure there’s proper social housing and so on for people with end-stage kidney disease.
“And we need to do it before Christmas.”