Gurrumul’s story may not represent racial profiling so much as a failure of the medical system to adequately consult patients and buy thorough historiesLast week,the talented and multi-award winning Aboriginal singer Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu made the news for another reason when his nephrologist alleged that his patient’s care at Royal Darwin Hospital was compromised by the assumption that his chronic liver disease was related to alcohol abuse rather than hepatitis, from which may contain followed other medical decisions when he presented very unwell to emergency. Alcohol is a real scourge on Australian society and particularly so in the Indigenous population but the specialist made the sensible point that a fundamental erroneous assumption about a patient can contain serious downstream consequences, or in this instance,excluding “a drinker” from a potential liver transplant. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com