AMSANT

AMSANT aims to improve the health of Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory through promoting and extending the principle of local Aboriginal community control over primary health care services to Aboriginal people. The details are contained in the AMSANT Constitution which says that AMSANT's aims and objectives are: To alleviate the sickness, suffering and disadvantage, and to promote the health and well-being of Aboriginal people of the NT through the delivery of health services and the promotion of research into causes and remedies for illness and ailment found within the Aboriginal population of the NT; To promote 'Primary Health Care' which means essential health care based on practical, scientifically sound and socially acceptable methods and technologies which address the main health problems in the community through preventive, curative, rehabilitative and promotive services. It involves the treatment and prevention of disease and injury and the creation of the circumstances for personal and social well-being. Such services shall be universally accessible to individuals and families in the community who, through properly elected representatives, control decision-making and service delivery in the spirit of self-reliance and self-determination. In the absence of control the community should exercise maximum participation in decision making and service delivery. To serve as a peak body and a forum for the Aboriginal Medical Services in the Northern Territory; To lobby for positive changes to the status of the health of Aboriginal people of the Northern Territory and Australia generally; To advocate for Aboriginal self determination and community control; To represent its Members and Associate Members at any committees, forums, conferences, meetings, inquiries, commissions, seminars, or negotiations directly or indirectly relating to Aboriginal health, and to report back to its Members and Associate Members in respect of such representation; To assist Aboriginal groups, including Associate Members, wishing to establish Aboriginal Medical Services to incorporate and to obtain direct funding as Aboriginal Medical Services in their own right either in areas of the Northern Territory currently without health services or with health services which are not Aboriginal Medical Services; To assist Aboriginal communities which do not control their health services to expand their participation in determining the policies and priorities of the health services that they do receive; To provide a voice on any issue which affects the health and well-being of Aboriginal people represented through the Association including health services, land, self-determination, economic development and environmental health.