People with intellectual disability in Australia are still dying decades earlier than other people.
People with intellectual disability are still much more likely to be hospitalised for preventable causes.
Doctors are still not getting the essential training they need to treat people with intellectual disability.
Why are these still things still happening?
In 2023 the Disability Royal Commission reported on the systemic neglect facing people with intellectual disability in the Australian healthcare system.
In response to the Disability Royal Commission the federal government funded the development of the National Roadmap for Improving the Health of People with Intellectual Disability – but not enough of the recommended steps have been taken.
The Roadmap identified 72 short-term actions to complete within 3 years, but only nine of them have been completed so far.
One of the Centre’s consortium members, the Council for Intellectual Disability, and Inclusion Australia are urging the next federal Government to:
- Implement the Roadmap – commit to fully implement the Roadmap to improve the health of people will intellectual disability
- Train doctors – commit to action that will ensure health professionals and students get the training they need to provide quality health care to people with intellectual disability
- Encourage GPs to spend more time with people with intellectual disability to better understand their health care needs.
Find out more
- About the campaign
- Listen to a report from ABC radio, Disability training needed for health professionals, 26 Feb 2025
- Read Health outcomes for people with intellectual disability remain 'comparable to third world countries', ABC News, 26 Feb 2025
- Read ‘Why are you letting them do this?’ The terror these mothers have for ‘unseen’ children, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 Feb 2025
