Yuin man Dr John Gilroy is an associate professor of sociology in Indigenous health at the University of Sydney. Aside from his own lived experience, Dr Gilroy has done a variety of research on Aboriginal health services in places like Condobolin, Bourke, and Orange.

He says Indigenous people want to access services that "they have a relationship with", whether it's Aboriginal community-controlled or mainstream services.

His view is Western NSW Primary Health Network (PHN) ending the contract with Marrabinya health service and was a "bad idea" and referred to the protest march that took place in Dubbo on Friday, August 19.

Some background on this story:

Community consultations were conducted by a "third party" as part of a review of the ITC program. PHN's response to the Daily Liberal revealed that government hired the firm PricewaterhouseCoopers to do the consultations.

"PricewaterhouseCoopers undertook the consultative functions as part of the ITC Program review on behalf of WNSW PHN. This process allows WNSW PHN to ensure the integrity and impartiality of the consultations conducted as part of the review," the response read.

Aboriginal health and disability expert Dr Gilroy disapproved of using "big business corporations" for community consultations. He said he was disappointed, and called the firm "nothing but a rich, White consultation body."

"Clearly, the review was not led by Aboriginal community groups, nor was it led by Aboriginal scholars in health... quite frankly, I don't trust PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, or other mainstream generic for-profit consultancies," he said.

"I support Aboriginal community controlled led evaluation and research."

READ ALSO:

Dr Gilroy said he had witnessed "good" mainstream organisations with Aboriginal community controlled services and Aboriginal staff that were defunded within a period of time by government.

"The government's got a big habit of making changes to Aboriginal health and community controlled initiatives and programmes, changing it and blaming Aboriginal communities," he said.

Federal member for Parkes Mark Coulton told Daily Liberal he was "upset" that a lot of "vulnerable people" thought that the ITC program was being cut.

He clarified that the ITC program would continue and people could obtain the same services, but through a "different provider" due to a revised program.

"This is not a decision that was made by myself or my government, it was made by the PHN, so I currently go on what I've been told by them. They have reassured me that this has come from consultation with the community... I have to take what I'm told on face value," Mr Coulton said.

Dubbo's Yvonne Hill, a former Marrabinya patient, said while a lot of people in her community were familiar with AMSs, she wanted people to have the freedom to choose their own health service providers.

"We live in a free country. If we're going through chronic illness, I don't think we should all be forced to use an AMS," she said.

Diversity in Aboriginal community-controlled services is "essential", according to Dr Gilroy.

He pointed to research from the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, the Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council, and his own research in remote communities which demonstrated "time and time again", that diversity was needed simultaneously with a "culturally safe and culturally competent mainstream, generic health sector."

"Currently, we are seeing far too many reforms and changes in Aboriginal health, which is impacting on Aboriginal people's lives and Aboriginal communities," Dr Gilroy said.

As far as he knew, Marrabinya had been successfully servicing the community's needs and meeting key performance indicators while staying within their budget. This made him doubt the reason for discontinuing it.

He said he believed the government was offering the ITC program contract to Aboriginal Medical Services for financial reasons, calling it a "poor decision" in governance and management of health services.

"Simply having one institution to manage everything does not necessarily mean improved efficiency," he said.

Dr Gilroy said he wasn't siding with AMS or Marrabinya.

"I'm encouraging that you have more community-controlled organisations and you support existing ones to grow," he said. "If you have diversity, you have greater diversity of needs being met."

"Not all Aboriginal people want to go to an AMS, not all not all Aboriginal people want to go to a mainstream service, but they [all] play a massive part in making a healthy community," he said.

HAVE YOUR SAY