- Early bird registrations for the 2025 NACCHO Members’ Conference
- Puggy Hunter Memorial Scholarship continues to support strong, First Nations-led health workforce
- Parenting tips for mob
- Delivering Better Healthcare For First Nations Women
- AI eye scans accurately detect diabetic eye disease in Australian trial
- Sector Jobs
The NACCHO Sector News is a platform we use to showcase the important work being done in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, focusing on the work of NACCHO, NACCHO members and NACCHO affiliates.
We also share a curated selection of news stories that are of likely interest to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health sector, broadly.
Early bird registrations for the 2025 NACCHO Members’ Conference
Early bird registrations for the 2025 NACCHO Members’ Conference close Saturday 13 September. This year’s program includes the NACCHO Members’ Conference, National Youth Conference, and AGM – taking place from 8-10 December at the Royal Randwick Racecourse on Bidjigal & Gadigal Country, Sydney.
The 2025 theme is: Strength Comes from Community Control.
Don’t miss out – secure your place today at the early bird rate.
Get more information and register.
Early Bird Registration Close 13 September.
Puggy Hunter Memorial Scholarship continues to support strong, First Nations-led health workforce
Applications for Australia’s largest Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health scholarship program have opened for 2026.
The Puggy Hunter Memorial Scholarship, established to honour the legacy of Dr Arnold “Puggy” Hunter, supports more than 100 Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander students each year to study entry-level health qualifications.
Dr Hunter was a respected Nyikina man who dedicated his life to addressing health inequity and empowering First Nations communities through self-determination and community control.
Now in its 23rd year, the Scholarship provides up to $15,000 per annum to assist with expenses and cost of living.
The Scholarship aims to build a culturally strong, highly skilled Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health workforce that improves access and outcomes, especially in rural and remote communities.
Since 2024, the program has been administered through Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community control, led by Indigenous Allied Health Australia (IAHA) and the National Association of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workers and Practitioners (NAATSIHWP), two national leads in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workforce development and support.
“Puggy” Hunter’s daughter, Emily Hunter, said being the Scholarship’s inaugural recipient gave her belief in herself and a sense of purpose.
Parenting tips for mob
The Dar’in Djanum Positive Parenting Project is a collaboration between Cherbourg Health Service, CRAICCHS, Cherbourg Aboriginal Shire Council and The University of Queensland since 2019.
Dar’in Djanum means ‘strong together’ in Wakka Wakka language
The aim is to promote our children’s social and emotional wellbeing by taking care of ourselves as parents and carers. This includes support to draw on cultural wisdom and traditional ways, family and community support, and positive parenting strategies that are proven to help.
Listen to what Cherbourg parents, carers and Elders had to say about looking after our wellbeing.
Read and listen to the stories.
This original painting by Robert “Rocko” Langton represents strong family connection. The old man and woman sitting down with a baby shows healing. Then growing up from a child to teenager through different stages. The circles around the painting represent those other families who help in raising the child to be a better person and strong child. The arch in the middle represents the home, community and school, and also church. They all are the foundations for the child. The painting is cross hatching representing my mum’s tribe, Gug-imudji, and my four brothers.
In Memory of Uncle Rocko Langton.
Delivering Better Healthcare For First Nations Women
The Allan Labor Government is ensuring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and girls can access culturally safe women’s health care, closer to home by strengthening the First Nations health workforce with further training and support.
Minister for Health Mary-Anne Thomas today announced at the Aboriginal Health and Wellbeing Partnership Forum in Ballarat, that the Labor Government will provide $300,000 to the Victorian Aboriginal Controlled Health Organisation (VACCHO) to deliver a dedicated Aboriginal women’s health workforce initiative.
The program will offer one-off grants of up to $5,000 for health clinicians employed by Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations (ACCHOs) to upskill in areas of women’s health. The grants will help clinicians and ACCHOs to better respond to the health needs of Aboriginal women and girls and to provide more effective care.
The grants can be used flexibly and will support up to 50 clinicians across the ACCHO sector to build their knowledge and skills in women’s health while also enhancing organisational capacity.
AI eye scans accurately detect diabetic eye disease in Australian trial
The study’s authors – Associate Professor Lisa Zhuoting Zhu and Sanil Joseph from the Centre for Eye Research Australia and University of Melbourne, and Professor Mingguang He, of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University – say their findings demonstrate the potential AI eye screening to become part of routine clinical care for people with diabetes.
Globally, more than 529 million people are living with diabetes and at risk of vision loss and blindness from diabetic eye disease.
Early treatment can prevent blindness in 90 per cent of cases but ensuring that everyone with diabetes has access to the eye scans needed to detect the disease is a huge challenge for health systems worldwide.
Now the findings of a two-year Australian trial, published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology, show the potential of AI to increase access to sight saving eye screenings.
More than 860 people with diabetes took part in the trial in the waiting rooms of GP and endocrinology clinics in Melbourne and an Aboriginal Health Service in Western Australia between August 2021 and June 2023.
Sector Jobs – you can see sector job listings on the NACCHO website here.
Advertising Jobs – to advertise a job vacancy click here to go to the NACCHO website current job listings webpage. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to find a Post A Job form. You can complete this form with your job vacancy details – it will then be approved for posting and go live on the NACCHO website.
Email us your story with some images to: NACCHOCommunicationsandMedia@naccho.org.au
and we will feature it in the news.
