Remote Australia Online

The social determinants of health include the health systems under which people live and utilize health services. One social determinant, for which pharmacists are responsible, is designing drug distribution systems that ensure patients have safe and convenient access to medications. This is critical for settings with poor access to health care. Rural and remote Australia is one example of a setting where the pharmacy profession, schools of pharmacy, and regulatory agencies require pharmacists to assure medication access. Studies of drug distribution systems in such settings are uncommon. This study describes a model for a drug distribution system in an Aboriginal Health Service in remote Australia. The results may be useful for policy setting, pharmacy system design, health professions education, benchmarking, or quality assurance efforts for health system managers in similarly remote locations. The results also suggest that pharmacists can promote access to medications as a social determinant of health.

Background: Delivering effective primary care to where it’s needed most—specifically remote Aboriginal communities—is hampered by high turnover and low stability of health clinic staff. This research investigates changes over time in staff turnover and stability in remote communities in the Northern Territory. Method: This study used descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression to analyse Department of Health payroll data, 2004-2015, for all staff based at 54 government-run remote NT clinics. Main outcome measures: annual turnover rates and 12-month stability rates in a specific remote community. Main outcomes were investigated by clinic, calendar year, professional discipline, employment level, age and geographical remoteness. Results: Annual turnover rates for all staff averaged 118% (95%CI 113, 124), declining significantly over time (175% in 2004 to 92% in 2015; p<0.05). Turnover rates were significantly lower during the NT Emergency Response (66% lower, 95%CI 48, 85). The most stable clinic had a mean 12-month stability rate for all staff that was 6 times higher than the least stable clinic (11%-66%, c2 35.6, p<0.01). There was a significant trend of increasing stability rates for all staff during the study period (increasing from 41% in 2004 to 51% in 2015; c212.5, p<0.01), averaging 49% overall (95%CI 46, 52). Aboriginal Health Practitioners had significantly lower annual turnover rates (53%; 95%CI 46, 61), higher stability rates (71%; 95%CI 62, 78) and longer median employment survival (1.19 years; p<0.01) compared to other professional groups. Nurses had significantly higher annual turnover rates (150%; 95%CI 141, 160) than administrative staff, though stability rates were no different. Median survival of nurses and administrative staff were 0.46 and 0.62 years respectively. Discussion: Turnover rates for all staff almost halved between 2004 and 2015 and 12-month stability rates improved significantly. Turnover, averaging 92%, and 12-month stability at 49%, are both at unacceptable levels, thus compromising continuity of care. This is particularly problematic for effective management of complex and chronic conditions. These staffing patterns demand high and sustained resourcing, and constant effort to stabilise the remote health workforce. Increased recruitment and training of local Aboriginal people into clinical and non-clinical professions are key to improved access and culturally safe care in remote clinics. Job satisfaction and retention can also be improved by ensuring that all employees feel valued and supported, and their community knowledge and cultural skills are recognised and respected along with their clinical skills.

In Australia both Indigenous communities and governments are concerned at the educational outcomes of Indigenous children, especially children in remote regions. However, there are divergent visions of Indigenous education. For Indigenous communities, education embraces culture and contributes to wellbeing, the focus of our research, while for governments, educational goals comprise school attendance, English literacy and completion of year 12. Our team of Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers explored wellbeing for Indigenous people in remote Australia through focus groups and interviews. Grounded analysis showed how research participants would like more Indigenous education for their children. Their vision for education includes transmission of Indigenous knowledge and skills in art, culture, history, land and sea management, and literacy in both English and Indigenous languages. Remote Indigenous communities hold under-utilised resources and strengths for education, and Indigenous people’s knowledge is needed, particularly in conservation and land and sea management. Research participants feel thwarted by education policies which require competition for funding and segregation of services. Re-imagining education from the perspectives of Indigenous communities offers opportunities to enhance education, together with employment, health and wellbeing, and strengthen Indigenous languages, knowledge and skills. These are important for both overcoming Indigenous disadvantage and for Australia to reach its commitments to conservation and sustainable development goals.

Ten years ago, six teachers established a program of literacy intervention and professional learning in remote northwestern Australia based on the Reading Recovery principles. This group of teachers was determined to learn what had to happen in order for them to make a difference with students and then to make it happen. Their work led to getting all the necessary players around the partnership table at the same time: all education sectors — local, regional, and national — noneducation government entities, business, parents, and other community partners.

In a research project called ‘Partnering with Community Information Intermediaries to Deliver Health Information in Rural, Regional and Remote Australia’,2 we investigated health information seeking and sharing in rural and remote communities in the state of Queensland. During the project we were particularly drawn to the experiences of Aboriginal Health Workers (AHWs) who, as health information intermediaries in their communities, were charged with addressing the circumstances of extreme disadvantage faced by Indigenous Australians as described above. We interviewed 33 health workers (Aboriginal and white) who are involved in Indigenous health services3 about their roles in mediating between the orthodox, Western medical system and Indigenousways of understanding health and about the impact of their work on the overall health and well-being of their communities.

This presentation will focus on the data, showing the poorer access to Medicare for Australians living in rural and remote areas. The evidence reinforces a statement by the outgoing Federal Health Minister Dr Michael Wooldridge, in the 2000s that in his view Medicare had failed rural Australia. The presentation will use Medicare data (non-referred attendances-effectively GP consultations) across the Australian Standard Geographic Classification which allows for quantitative comparisons between ‘City’ and ‘Country’. The presentation will focus on the population share of Medicare across very remote, remote and outer regional and compare it to major cities. This will show whether Medicare access for rural Australians has improved or continues to be a failure. The difference in access will be described in dollar terms for each of the geographic classifications. The presentation will then overlay the burden of disease, preventable admissions and the higher health risks faced by those living in these areas. These health issues are all preventable and treatable with early access, response and advocacy by primary health care services. It seems strange that those in Australia who are sickest and with high health risks have the least access to Medicare, simply because of where they live. This was once excusable on the basis that it was difficult to get general practitioners into the remote and small rural communities. That excuse has now gone with access to technology. The presentation will show the evidence that health outcomes in rural and remote Australia would be transformed by a simple act of allowing general practitioners to provide Medicare-funded services through telehealth. Patients of specialists of all types, including FACEMS, radiologists and psychiatrists, all enjoy Medicare rebates for telehealth consultations. This shows safety and quality are not a barrier to using technology. Supporting general practitioners through the same access for their patients in remote Australia and in those areas where there is no general practitioner service using telehealth would be an extremely cost effective means of addressing their preventable health risks and conditions. The presentation will conclude with a projected cost to Medicare of providing the same access to Medicare as city Australians. It will call on the National Rural Health Alliance and its partners to advocate for unrestricted Medicare rebates for GP services into remote and rural communities.

To trace the development and application of communication technologies is to follow the well worn paths of imperial European powers in their military and economic conquests of previous centuries. Relationships of dependency encompassing whole countries and spheres of influence grew out of the imperial routes of communication which passed and still pass through London and Paris. The communication networks of the nineteenth century, as now, ran parallel with imperial expansion. The British network of trans-Atlantic cables was widely acknowledged as giving Britain domination over international communications. However it was the United States which emerged from World War II best positioned to exploit the economic and political potential of a global economy, a consequence of the dislocations of war. American global military and economic ambitions were frustrated by the absence of the necessary communications infrastructure to support a global push (Chanter 1985). In retrospect it is possible to identify two strategies which evolved out of the United States and aimed to weaken the communications routes of the old imperial order.

Teacher education programmes are often tasked with preparing predominantly White, middle class, pre-service teachers to be effective in diverse contexts. Many teacher educators consider practicum experiences critical to forming values and dispositions necessary for the teaching profession. This article focuses on the work of two White, middle-class, pre-service teachers, Charlotte and Seraphina, who volunteered to do their practicum in a remote indigenous community in Australia on the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands. At the beginning of the practicum, both pre-service teachers’ attitudes about the experience were similar; yet, over time they began to develop divergant dispositions or ‘positionality towards diversity’ relative to their unique backgrounds and APY Lands experiences, highlighting certain sensitivities and biases regarding racial, cultural and linguistic diversity. We focus on how Charlotte and Seraphina interpret their experiences, what this can tell us about their professional development, and the possible implications for teacher educators teaching in post-colonial contexts.

Collaboration between dental practitioners and non-dental primary care providers has the potential to improve oral health care for people in rural and remote communities, where access to oral health services is limited. However, there is limited research on collaboration between these professional disciplines. The purpose of this paper was to explore the relationships between dental practitioners and non-dental primary care providers from rural and remote areas of Queensland and to identify strategies that could improve collaboration between these disciplines from the perspective of dental participants.

This article draws on the outcomes of a 4-year project where complex instruction was used as the basis for a reform in mathematics teaching in remote Aboriginal communities in Australia. The article describes the overall project in terms of the goals and aspirations for learning mathematics among remote Indigenous Australians. Knowing that the approach had been successful in a diverse setting in California, the project team sought to implement and evaluate the possibilities of such reform in a context in which the need for a culturally responsive pedagogy was critical. Elements of complex instruction offered considerable possibilities in aligning with the cultures of the remote communities, but with recognition of the possibility that some elements may not be workable in these contexts. Complex instruction also valued deep knowledge of mathematics rather than a tokenistic, impoverished mathematics. The strategies within complex instruction allowed for mathematical and cultural scaffolding to promote deep learning in mathematics. Such an approach was in line with current reforms in Indigenous education in Australia where there are high expectations of learners in order to break away from the deficit thinking that has permeated much education in remote Australia. The overall intent is to demonstrate what pedagogies are possible within the constraints of the remote context.

The numbers of suicide and self-inflicted injuries in the Kimberley are amongst the highest in Australia and are over 7 times higher than the state average. They are the leading cause of death for Kimberley youth between 16 and 24 years of age. Within the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia, of the 15% of adults who have a diagnosed mental health problem only 8% have accessed mental health services. Despite the high need for psychology services, there are very few clinical psychologists in the Kimberley and referred patients are on long waitlists. The Kimberley Rural Health Alliance (KRHA), a newly established University Department of Rural Health, is collaborating with Murdoch University and a number of local organisations to support clinical psychology students to expand the delivery of mental health services in the Kimberley. As there are very few accredited psychologist supervisors working in the Kimberley region it is very difficult to organise clinical placements for psychology students. The KRHA cultural security officer provides students with cultural training, mentoring and support. KRHA is piloting a program in which clinical psychology students are placed within organisations that do not currently have psychology services, such as an Aboriginal Drug and Alcohol rehabilitation centre and an Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Service. Psychology students are integrated within the primary health care setting, often locally supervised by the senior Aboriginal health workers, whilst also receiving remote supervision by videoconference from a clinical psychologist at a city based university. This is a unique and innovative, non-traditional way to supervise clinical psychology students, which allows psychology students to be placed in culturally safe settings where there is client need. There is an interprofessional emphasis in these placements, in which students work together with local health workers to develop and implement psychological services appropriate to the needs of the community as well as enhancing their own learning and practices in culturally responsive ways. This may include undertaking assessments, as referred by GPs and health workers, and implementing evidence informed interventions with individuals, families or in groups, that are adapted as appropriate to the local context, with input from local services. This clinical psychology placement program is currently being evaluated for student and client outcomes and community impact. This presentation will share evaluation data and outline the challenges and some potential solutions to increasing psychology services in remote Australia and enhancing cultural responsivity in psychology training programs.

Drawing on an analysis of choreographic processes developed in situ in remote Western Australia, it is concluded that alternative approaches to ‘listening’ are required to allow new forms of Indigenous storytelling to emerge. The chapter presents a practice-based account to how this ‘listening’ might function by outlining the development of an experimental dance theatre process in close association with Indigenous elders and their custodianship of ‘country.’ The legacy of the forced removals under the Western Australian assimilation policies of the last century and its impact on dance and story, as well as current definitions of ‘tradition’ and continuous connection to country under native title law, are examined in order to consider the creation of contemporary dance in a context of loss. The performer’s response of ‘dancing back’ to the intrusions faced by their community are presented in a series of case studies taken from rehearsal notes.

Given the crucial role played by census data in informing economic and social policies directed at the Aboriginal population in remote areas, some assessment of the quality of remote area data is required as these are derived from enumeration procedures which differ fundamentally from the standard approach employed in the census. This paper discusses the remote area census enumeration strategy employed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), with a particular focus on the Northern Territory, and highlights possible implications for the interpretation of census counts and census characteristics.

The maldistribution of the Australian health workforce contributes to restricted accessibility and poorer health outcomes for rural and remote populations, especially Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. Student exposure to rural and remote settings is a long-term strategy that aims to reduce workforce shortages by encouraging rural career uptake, with well-supervised, positive placement experiences associated with rural practice intentions. Furthermore, placements can build students’ cultural capabilities and foster interest in working with disadvantaged and underserved Aboriginal communities. However, little is known about the translation of rural practice intentions to career paths, and the factors influencing employment decision-making and application of clinical and cultural content to professional practice.

Bilingual schooling, introduced in the Northern Territory by the federal government in 1973, was a reality for over twenty schools at the height of the program in the early 1980s. Many advocates for the program—and at times Australian governments—have lent their support to this pedagogical method based on the well-established principle that traditional literacy and the associated development of conceptual thinking occurs most effectively in one's mother tongue(s) before it can be transferred into a new language (Caffrey et et al 2008; Cummins 1999). Yet the aims of the bilingual program in remote Aboriginal schools have, at times, been much broader than the achievement of English literacy. Drawing on interview data and documentary sources, this paper explores the hidden history of 'Aboriginalisation' within bilingual schools in the 1990s, primarily in northeast Arnhem land. Aboriginalisation aimed for schools controlled by Aboriginal bodies, teaching an Aboriginal curriculum, envisioned as part of the push for self-determination and the maintenance of Aboriginal cultural life. English literacy was seen as part of the achievement of ‘double power’: the ability to negotiate Aboriginal society and non-Aboriginal society. At a local level, this vision of education challenged power relationships between teachers and brought into question the balanda values in the school curriculum. Today, this history serves as a corrective to those who see the bilingual debate primarily in pedagogical terms, and it presents a contrasting vision to the predominant contemporary policy paradigm of ‘mainstreaming’ in Aboriginal education.

Supplying education on aspects of the menopause to outback women of far western New South Wales is one of the most challenging facets in my role as a Women's Health Nurse Practitioner. Women's Health Nurses function as primary health care workers by being the first level of contact for women in the community. This conatact allows for appropriate referral to occur.

The paper questions the nature of inter-business collaboration in tourism and assesses critically perspectives that seem to take for granted that greater collaboration is necessarily beneficial to tourism destination systems, as well as the businesses within them. It survey some specific strands of relevant literature to argue that such views are often implicit in generic policy or management recommendations regarding tourism governance. In contrast, argues for the need to recognize explicitly the opportunity costs encountered by tourism firms when choosing inter-firm linkages (as well as private-public partnerships) as the latter are embedded in business learning strategies, and reflect a large and diverse set of costs and benefits arising from those choices. The paper appraises the findings from Tremblay and Wegner (2009) exploratory survey of remote tourism businesses in the light of those claims, to show the diversity of perceptions regarding the nature of those costs and benefits emanating from business respondents, and highlights the role of location, business size and functional outlook in shaping those perceptions.

This article describes the background to the development of the BRACS proposal, the ideas on which it is based and the process by which the policy emerged from the technical, legislative, social and administrative diffiucltries of transforming the initial aims into an acceptable proposal.

This chapter extends the findings of a four-year investigation (2012–2015) into the processes, the data, the issues, the enablers and constraints, the opportunities and the successes associated with the transition of Indigenous students into higher education across the nation (Kinnane et al. ‘Can’t be what you can’t see’: the transition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students into higher education: Final report 2014. Office for Learning and Teaching, Sydney, 2014). This research described exemplar thinking, principles of successful programs, and identified elements of leading practice in the context of current trends and overall policy shifts relating to Indigenous experiences of higher education in 26 universities across Australia. The research also outlined five models for Indigenous student transition, retention and graduation utilised by Australian universities. This foundational work was then used as a framework by which to conduct further research into online learning experiences for Indigenous students living and studying in remote communities. In this chapter, we examine particular elements within the identified models that afford maximum success and participation in higher education for Indigenous students studying in remote locations. It is noted that these models are also in transition, hybridised and dynamic, with the thinking, policy and programs that underpin them continually evolving. Based on interviews with educators in the Kimberley Region of Western Australia, we establish an informed and nuanced understanding of the experiences of Indigenous university students living and studying in remote, and very remote, locations of Australia and of what ‘success’ might look like in these particular geographical and cultural contexts. Further, we aim to contribute to the development of a culturally responsive approach in the higher education sector which seeks to (i) promote community and family awareness and engagement in these students’ learning experiences, (ii) strengthen student support and (iii) improve learning opportunities and enhance student engagement; the combined effect of all three being to improve educational outcomes for Indigenous higher education students studying online in remote and very remote communities. We argue that successful transition may actualise anywhere between enrolment in a university, retention in a course or successful completion, and that there are key areas where investment in success can be made. To this end, we identify online teaching and learning strategies based on the research findings, designed to enhance learning opportunities and promote family and community engagement.

The AUSSAT domestic satellite system creates possibilities for introducing or improving radio, television and telecommunications services in remote areas. Conceptually this satellite system has the potential to meet all the communication needs of isolated communities and, particularly, Aboriginal communities in remote Australia. Unfortunately, the satellite system's ability to meet these expectations is constrained by our capacity, and to some extent our will, to make use of it. The AUSSAT system is a marvellous piece of technology designed primarily for television broadcasting. It is prohibitively expensive, in terms of ground technology, to use it for almost any other purpose.

This scoping paper is a preliminary introduction to the aspirations, interrelated literature and research involved in development of the Kimberley Transitions Project. Our focus is on Western Australia’s Kimberley region, a landscape of immense natural and cultural significance. Along with the rest of Australia, and indeed the world in which we all live, the Kimberley is on the verge of major climate, political, social and economic change. The direction of changes being proposed by governments and industry are regularly criticised, both globally and locally, by individuals and organisations concerned about damage to its rich biodiversity and cultural integrity. With the aim of collaboratively generating Kimberley-based responses grounded in local knowledges, a mix of disciplines and emerging international theories, scholars and relevant groups have come together to form a Kimberley-wide practical and shared research agenda. One of the key influences behind the project is an international transitions movement which aims to generate collaborative change incorporating a process of transition. Locally identified issues using local knowledges and capacity are central to its evolution. A conceptual and theoretical framing known as ‘transitions discourse’ is also emerging internationally and nationally, one that foregrounds diverse epistemologies and challenges mainstream economics and associated ideologies, such as neoliberalism. Via the Kimberley Transitions project, Kimberley-based researchers and collaborators aim to support and further document social, cultural and economic change inspired by the transitions movement and informed by transition discourses. It has the Kimberley landscape and people at its heart; a transformative approach featuring cultural healing, intellectual rigour and an ethos aimed at enduring, practical and interconnected sustainable outcomes.

Background: Understanding cumulative exposure to temperatures is important for assessing vaccine viability. Cold chain monitoring systems in Australia do not monitor cumulative exposures for individual vaccines from point of manufacture to administration. Remote Australia poses additional challenges to vaccine integrity due to vast geographical distances, extreme environmental temperatures, disjointed supply routes and interruptions to power supply. Aim: This study aims to quantify individual vaccine exposure to temperatures outside the cold-chain recommended temperature range (2-8°C) from dispatch to the point of administration. Method: Sixty electronic temperature monitors were attached to individual vaccines dispatched from a remote hospital pharmacy department to remote clinics between November 2017 and March 2018. Monitors were returned with vaccine administration details and cumulative exposures to temperatures outside of the recommended range (2-8°C) were assessed. Results: Monitored vaccines were distributed to 13 different clinics, travelling an average of 243 km (range 2.9 km to 521 km), all in non-refrigerated vehicles and often on dirt roads. Thirty one (51.7%) temperature monitors were returned, 17 (28.3%) of these were accompanied with complete administration records. All 31 monitors that were returned recorded temperature excursions above 8°C during packing at the pharmacy department, transportation to and/or during storage at the clinic. The average peak temperature exposure was 18.1°C (range 9.4°C to 27.3°C) and average cumulative time above 8°C was approximately 19 hours. Thirty (96.8%) of the cumulative temperature exposures were acceptable according to the local protocol; one episode of freezing was recorded by the monitor that was not identified by the clinic’s monitoring system. Conclusion: Temperature excursions outside of the recommended cold chain occurred frequently, however most cumulative temperatures were acceptable according to the local protocol. This study did not capture data on vaccine cold chain prior to arrival at the pharmacy department. Future studies should include cumulative temperature data from vaccine manufacture to the point of administration to accurately quantify vaccine viability. Electronic temperature monitors are useful in identifying areas for improving the cold chain and should be considered with regular audits to test the performance of cold chain management systems.

Introduction: This paper will discuss innovations using existing social media infrastructures to provide an effective pregnancy and parenting service that meets the needs of rural and remote Australians, without any direct face to face contact. Healthdirect Australia’s social media research, analytics data and qualitative evaluation explores the consumers’ expectations and how healthcare providers may operate in this environment. Rationale: Pregnancy, Birth and Baby (PBB) provides a maternal child health nurse service completely within the digital multimedia environment, utilising telephone, video, website and Facebook to communicate, provide advice and support. Our data shows 77% of women access PBB via their mobile device with the main age group, 24 to 35, using social media as their first information source choice and for peer validation. The similarity between birthing age groups and social media users provides an opportunity to engage parents and address access concerns. Healthdirect piloted live Facebook forums with nurses answering parents’ questions, exploring the multichannel environment from both the consumers and healthcare providers’ expectations. Objectives were to learn about audience behaviour, scale, workflow, editorial process and risk management. Building understanding of the forum requirements, benefits, outcomes and ability to scale up. Discussion: The forums connected expecting and new parents and nurses in a social environment without the need to travel or use the phone. This facilitated community building and promoted engagement through sharing of content overcoming the tyranny of distance and isolation. The topics allowed parents to ask any question and allowed us to be present in the same digital space with them. Participation expanded the professional scope of the nurses involved, increasing their social media literacy, developing their response writing confidence and they had fun. The Facebook forums, with their ability to form supportive social networks for isolated and vulnerable families, reached our national consumer audience. Fundamentally putting the rural family, their needs and aspirations at the centre of our service provision. The innovation development process included risk management meetings, proposals, approvals from executive, time and work flow reviews, resulting in functioning forums that operated safely and independently of restrictive oversight. Conclusions and implications for practice: Implications for using social media forums within practice include: training, tone of the written voice and drafting, answers to reduce stress of writing ‘on the fly’, managing risk, audience engagement in topic selection, allocating people to roles in live chat.

Despite high levels of poverty in Indigenous Australian communities, workforce participation is low for the few jobs available. Our research showed that, in contrast, there was a high level of interest in involvement in wildlife-based industries. Young men were particularly interested in animal-based industries whereas involvement in plant-based industries was more likely among middle-aged people of both sexes. People who had employment as land and sea managers (‘rangers’) were more likely than others to express interest in enterprise involvement. Importantly the level and type of interest differed between communities, reflecting differences in history and culture. The results, which are the first documentation of a quantitative analysis of Australian Indigenous peoples’ interest in wildlife-based enterprises, suggest that this is considered far more desirable than involvement in other types of work that might be available. It also suggests that any programmes facilitating such enterprises need to be tailored to the community for which they are being designed.

Terminalia ferdinandiana (Kakadu plum) is a native Australian plant containing phytochemicals with antioxidant capacity. In the search for alternatives to synthetic preservatives, antioxidants from plants and herbs are increasingly being investigated for the preservation of food. In this study, extracts were prepared from Terminalia ferdinandiana fruit, leaves, seedcoats, and bark using different solvents. Hydrolysable and condensed tannin contents in the extracts were determined, as well as antioxidant capacity, by measuring the total phenolic content (TPC) and free radical scavenging activity using the 2, 2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay. Total phenolic content was higher in the fruits and barks with methanol extracts, containing the highest TPC, hydrolysable tannins, and DPPH-free radical scavenging capacity (12.2 ± 2.8 g/100 g dry weight (DW), 55 ± 2 mg/100 g DW, and 93% respectively). Saponins and condensed tannins were highest in bark extracts (7.0 ± 0.2 and 6.5 ± 0.7 g/100 g DW). The antimicrobial activity of extracts from fruit and leaves showed larger zones of inhibition, compared to seedcoats and barks, against the foodborne bacteria Listeria monocytogenes, Bacillus cereus, Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The minimum inhibitory concentration and minimum bactericidal concentration in response to the different extracts ranged from 1.0 to 3.0 mg/mL. Scanning electron microscopy images of the treated bacteria showed morphological changes, leading to cell death. These results suggest that antioxidant rich extracts of Terminalia ferdinandiana fruits and leaves have potential applications as natural antimicrobials in food preservation.