The Northern Territory is a large sparsely populated area and has a large Indigenous population and high rates of diabetes. At Royal Darwin hospital over 70% of our patients are Indigenous and many of them have diabetes.
The RDH Diabetes Team has inpatient and outpatient services, some being held in the hospital or urban clinics and others a long plane ride away. The NT has high levels of screening and although many of our patients have type 2 diabetes some of them as young as 10 years old.
We have group of Indigenous type 1 patients, noted to be clustered through out areas in the Northern Territory.
My role as an Aboriginal Health Worker Practitioner/Diabetes Educator in the hospital setting is to support health professionals and Indigenous women to navigate the health care system in the Northern Territory.