We applaud Dr Partridge's recent thought provoking editorial¹ which is timely with recent articles focusing on medicine, poverty, and marginalised groups.² We wish to add that the issues raised by Partridge are also highly relevant in Australia with respect to indigenous Australians who have unacceptably high levels of morbidity and mortality compared with non-indigenous Australians.³ Also, in addition to the influence of the doctor/patient relationship on health care, we wish to question the model of care used by doctors and other health care providers when servicing minority groups.⁴

We have had the privilege of providing a paediatric respiratory outreach service to remote indigenous communities in far north Queensland over the last three years. In these children we found a high rate of persistent asthma and non-optimal use of asthma devices as well as poor asthma knowledge. Also, by using the community controlled primary health care model instead of the standard . . . [Full text of this article]