Indigenous Queenslanders will wait until early 2016 for a strategy to deal with Queensland’s worst outbreak of syphilis in 30 years, Health Minister Cameron Dick told reporters on Friday.
More than 500 new cases of syphilis have been reported across northern Queensland in the past four years.
The outbreak began in Queensland’s Doomadgee four years ago and has spread across the top of Australia into the Northern Territory and then the top of South Australia.
Although some “on the ground” screening and sexual education is underway, the co-ordinated strategy will not be ready until “early in 2016”, Mr Dick said.
Mr Dick meets with indigenous leaders this week to push the anti-syphilis strategy.
“I am meeting with a group of indigenous leaders next week from across the state to listen to them and to further embrace some of those matters,” Mr Dick said.
“We need to get on tip of the issue, but we need to work with the community to resolve it,” he said.
He said it would be after Christmas before the co-ordinated strategy was ready, Mr Dick said.
“At this stage, I think the plan is early in the New Year, but we are looking at the time line for that now,” he said.
Mr Dick said the issue was being given a high-profile within Queensland Health.
“I am greatly disturbed by this,” Mr Dick said.
“And we are working with our five northern hospital and health services to develop a strategy to address that,” he said.
Mr Dick said he met the chairs of the five health districts this week to push the strategy forward.
“Particularly we want to consult with all those communities in the north to make sure that we have got this right,” he said.
Mr Dick said South Australian and Northern Territory delegates at the International HIV conference held in Brisbane in late September 2015 discussed the issue with him at the conference.
“There were some leaders from some aboriginal communities in South Australia who have been involved in dealing with the outbreak of sexual health diseases in South Australia,” he said.
Queensland is also still developing its statewide sexual health strategy, announced in September 2015, he said.
“And I think this will be a really important health process.”
On November 12, Fairfax Media reported 500 new cases of syphilis has been reported, with some experts seriously questioning the previous government’s decision to cut back 18 sexual health nurses and indigenous nurse positions in North Queensland in 2012.
Mr Dick’s comments came as he opened the new $134 million Centre for Children’s Health Research Centre adjacent to the Lady Cilento Hospital at South Brisbane on Friday.
All research into children’s health issues including respiratory problems, head and spinal injuries, tumours effecting children, children’s mental health and burns are all undertaken at the new centre.
The Queensland Government contributed $89 million, while the Queensland University of Technology, the University of Queensland and the Translational Research Institute (TRI) contributed $45 million together.
Researchers from the Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital will work with researchers from the University of Queensland and Queensland University of Technology at the nine-storey research centre.
There are 200 researchers at the Centre for Children’s Health Research, which Mr Dick said would be “scaled-up” to around 300 by mid-2016.
“What this means is that, for the first time in Queensland, we have all researchers working in children’s health working in the one spot.”
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