The manual is for staff who would be working in Aboriginal communities, before attending cross-cultural workshop.

Cyclone Tracy devastated the city of Darwin during the night of December 24, 1974. By morning a city, of some 45,000 people and of 12,000 homes, had ceased to exist. The following is an account of how the health personnel in Darwin, both Government and private, dealt with this unique and overwhelming disaster. The situation can be considered to have been composed of six phases: Phase I, Preparation; II, The Cyclone; III, Casualties; IV, Emergency Centres - Air Evacuation; V, Health Clean Up; and VI, Reconstruction.

No abstract available

Physical, mental and social health depends on the conditions under which people live, where the environment has to be cleanly maintained to avoid spread of diseases. Settled existences have to take care that the houses are not too close, prevent drinking water from pollution, proper sanitation, systematic garbage collection services, to lead to a healthy disease free living.

Queensland Mines Ltd., proposed to mine, concentrate and export uranium from a deposit discovered in 1970 at Nabarlek, Arnhem Land, Northern Territory. Detailed knowledge of mosquitoes, including their occurrence at different times of the year, the species present, the relative numbers, and the actual breeding sites, was needed for the Nabarlek area. The Department of Health was approached by the Environmental Officer of Queensland Mines, after preliminary talks on health matters, and requested the Department to conduct entomological investigations in the area.

Report on a visit to Tennant Creek 27/9/78 by medical entomologist. The previous entomology inspection of Tennant Creek was carried out in September 19760 During this visit there were a number of mosquito breeding sites located, including septic tanks, leaking water meters and fire hydrants, and storm water drains. Potential mosquito breeding was noted in the upper reaches of the proposed recreation lake and the last ponds at the sewage treatment works.

The First National Aboriginal Health Workers Conference was organised by the Department of Health, Northern Territory, to enable Aboriginal health workers from all parts of Australia to meet and share ideas about their work, their training programs and those aspects of health which are of importance to Aboriginal people. A secondary function of the conference was to enable other people involved in the training and employment of health workers to attend the discussion sessions, largely as observers, and to exchange ideas on their own particular problems and progress. Concurrent sessions were arranged for this purpose. A total of 140 delegates from all mainland States and the Northern Territory attended the conference which was held over three days from 10 to 12 October.

This report is part of a continuing investigation being conducted in the Jabiru area to assess: (1) the potential of mosquitoes to cause pest and disease problems (2) the impact of man's activities upon local mosquito breeding. The previous entomological surveys of June 1977 and May 1978 revealed sufficient numbers of mosquitoes in the area to constitute pest problems and a disease potential at those times. Seasonal variability in the type and availability of mosquito breeding sites necessitates a number of investigations be conducted at different times during the year. This survey considers the mosquito situation in the latter part of the wet season. As developments of the mining site and the nearby regional town proceeds, later surveys will consider the impact of man, as regards the creation of new breeding sites and the alteration of known breeding sites.

When anaesthetising an Aboriginal patient, Aboriginal health workers should consider make-up factors, like the presence of special anatomical features, variations from a white person in physiological terms, personal habits and the patient's psychological condition.

Aboriginal people in olden days learned about the food from their forefathers where everybody helped each other to know about the foods and how to use them. However, now the situation has changed and most of the foods are bought from the stores. Health workers need to help the store manager and the people working there to enable the people to learn more about food by way of posters, attractively arranging foods on shelves and providing different sizes of packets or tins of foods.

The advantages of breast feeding and maintaining good health of lactating mothers are highlighted and the problems faced by babies who are deprived of breast-feeding are mentioned. Health workers must impart knowledge about bottle-feeding such as the measurement and preparation of milk mixture, hygiene and sterility to be maintained in case of mothers and guardians who need to bottle feed their babies, and encourage breast-feeding wherever possible.

The admission of patients to the Casuarina Hospital is expected early in 1980. The actual date is dependent upon the successful completion on time of the construction not only of the Casuarina Hospital but also of the Central Laboratories Facility. Darwin Hospital and Casuarina Hospital are to be managed under one hospital administration and to be known as the Darwin Hospitals' Group.

Port Keats was established as a mission in 1935 and since then there have been only two species of mosquitoes recorded from the area. No cases of malaria have been recorded from Port Keats but the past distribution of malaria in the Northern Territory includes areas to the south at Victoria River, to the east at Daly River and to the west in North West Australia. The suspected vector of malaria in the coastal areas of the Northern Territory is Anopheles farauti but its past known distribution does not include Western Australia. The most west-ward record of Anopheles farauti is Daly River. A mosquito survey was carried out at Port Keats primarily to establish the presence of Anopheles farauti, to record the mosquito fauna of the area, and map the principal and potential mosquito breeding sites.

Alice Springs is about half-way between Adelaide and Darwin. It provides the commercial nucleus for the whole Alice Springs and Barkly Regions of the Northern Territory. These regions involve many Aboriginals and Europeans living and working in isolated areas. The Alice ls a fast-growing town that boasts modern facilities and progressive development readily seen by the many new supermarkets, shops, medical centres and office buildings. Fortunately, the characteristic outback flavour has managed to survive all this modernization, and a touch of the old pioneering spirit still lingers. At the turn of the century Alice Springs was just a quaint little outpost serving the epic overland telegraph. By 1980, however, the population was nearing the 17,000 mark and was conservatively predicted to continue growing at the steady rate of at least four per cent each year.

The following report of an entomological investigation around the area of the Queensland Mines Limited uranium mining site at Nabarlek has been preceded by a dry season survey conducted during September 1978. A detailed knowledge of the mosquito fauna (ie. species diversity, numbers, breeding sites) requires investigations to be done at different times of the year because of the marked variations in availability of breeding sites during the year.

This short Study Book about Medical Tests and their uses is Unit 5 of the Post Basic Aboriginal Health Worker Training Programme. It has been written to help with background information about the common tests made in medical diagnosis.

Although leprosy was originally introduced into the Northern Territory in the 1880s, it was not until a decade later that it appeared amongst Aborigines from the Alligator rivers region. It subsequently spread slowly at the periphery involving tribe after Aboriginal tribe until, by 1970, more than 80 different groups were affected.

Preparation of the Teacher's Guide has been largely the work of the Environmental Health Worker Training Task Force which operated from December 1978 to June 1979. The approach adopted in this Guide is similar to that taken in the Postbasic Health Course, Aboriginal Health Worker Training Programme.

In our developed urban societies beneficial modification of the environment by provision of ample safe water supplies, domestic and municipal sanitation and the application of building and accommodation standards is taken for granted. The poor health standards of Australian Aborigines are now widely publicised but the extent to which basic facilities are involved is less appreciated. This survey examined Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, a number of which are equal in size to many typical rural towns which are provided with full municipal services. The population surveyed represents approximately 40% of the Aboriginal population of the Northern Territory or approximately 10% of the total Territory population. The Department of Health's experience and observations are that the survey findings are representative for the entire Aboriginal population in the Northern Territory.