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Abstract:
Due to the lack of resources in remote Aboriginal communities within the Northern Territory of Australia, Aboriginal people requiring chronic maintenance hemodialysis often have to relocate from their home communities to Darwin city permanently to receive on going care. This phenomenon can cause distressing isolation from important traditional food, land and family.To identify the relationship to traditional food from an Aboriginal perspective and the enablers and barriers to accessing traditional food post relocation from remote regions of the Northern Territory Australia to the urban city of Darwin.A qualitative study design with a total of 12 Aboriginal participants (4 males; 8 females) receiving on going hemodialysis at the Nightcliff Renal Unit. Participants had all relocated from a remote region to Darwin. Interviews were conducted between July and September 2018 in Darwin, Australia. Data interpretation was conducted by an Aboriginal researcher and co-authors with a combined thirty years of experience conducting research with Aboriginal people in a health context. Data analysis comprised an inductive thematic analysis approach with an Indigenist knowledge interpretation lens to construct, reaffirm and protect Indigenous views.Traditional food was an important part of participant's identity and strongly connected to social, emotional, spiritual and physical health and well-being. Access to traditional food post relocation is associated with enablers and barriers including mobility, local knowledge, social support networks, commercial access and economics.Dialysis patients who are dislocated from remote Aboriginal communities to Darwin experience clear disruption to traditional food access, consumption, availability and knowledge dissemination to the younger generations.
