The Aboriginal Medical Service (AMS) was established in Redfern from 1971. It was the first Aboriginal community controlled health service in Australia, and it is now a key Indigenous community organisation, from which most Aboriginal medical services around the State of New South Wales have stemmed. The AMS pioneered the concept of Aboriginal community-controlled health care, and as part of its broader objectives, the AMS aims to improve the health standards in Aboriginal communities across Australia.
The project had distinctly co-operative beginnings. Its foundation was led by Mum (Shirl) Smith, Ken Brindle and Chicka and Elsa Dixon. It was set up by Gordon Briscoe, Dr. Ferry Grundseit, the late Dr. Fred Hollows and Shirley Smith, who were all concerned with the serious health problems of Aboriginal Australians in Sydney. Its growth was encouraged by Redfern parish priest Fr Ted Kennedy.
The Sisters of Mercy donated the property in which the Aboriginal Medical Service had been established to the Redfern Aboriginal community in 1978. The service now provides medical, dental, aged care, drug and alcohol services to around 55,000 patients each year.
The modern centre was designed by Merrima company, and built on the donated land adjacent to the St Vincent's Roman Catholic community including the church, presbytery, convent and school built around 1887.
Famous quotes containing the words aboriginal, medical and/or service:
“John Eliot came to preach to the Podunks in 1657, translated the Bible into their language, but made little progress in aboriginal soul-saving. The Indians answered his pleas with: ‘No, you have taken away our lands, and now you wish to make us a race of slaves.’”
—Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program. Connecticut: A Guide to Its Roads, Lore, and People (The WPA Guide to Connecticut)
“They said I’d never get you back again.
I tell you what you’ll never really know:
all the medical hypothesis
that explained my brain will never be as true as these
struck leaves letting go.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Service ... is love in action, love “made flesh”; service is the body, the incarnation of love. Love is the impetus, service the act, and creativity the result with many by-products.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 3, ch. 3 (1962)