Nunkuwarrin Yunti of South Australia meets wider needs for health care in the Aboriginal community's dire plight

The mural on the front of Nunkuwarrin Yunti's Wakefield Street, Adelaide, clinic featuring the rainbow mural by A.M. (Max) Mansell.

Nunkuwarrin Yunti of South Australia is an Aboriginal community health service started in the 1960s by Gladys Elphick, who founded the Council of Aboriginal Women of SA.

Aboriginal children in South Australia were found to be four times more likely to die than non-Aboriginal children during the 2005-14 decade. While the state’s overall child death rate in the 10 years to 2014 steadily declined, it increased for Aboriginal children.

More than 60% of the 131 Aboriginal children who died in the decade had been in contact with Families SA, the state’s child protection agency. A report on the Aboriginal children’s death said the context was disadvantage, arising in part from circumstances of the parents’ lives and histories. Agencies needed to do more to promote cultural awareness and to response to abuse notifications quickly and effectively.

Nunkuwarrin Yunti (Working together; doing right together) offers an extensive range of services including birthing and family support, counselling, diabetes education, clean needle program and methadone support and referral, healthy liver program, immunisation, medical care, No Pulgi mobile health team for the homeless, Towilla purruttiappendi (healing the spirit) counselling, social work program, home and prison visiting; podiatry, psychiatry and women’s health.

Nunkuwarrin Yunti has clinics at Wakefield Street in the Adelaide CBD and at Brady Street, Elizabeth Downs. Both clinics have a range of services available. An education and training clinic is on South Terrace, Adelaide.

Nunkuwarrin Yunti is the custodian of one of the most extensive and valuable collections of Aboriginal artefacts in South Australia, displayed in the front foyer of its Wakefield Street, Adelaide, premises.