DR TESSA BOYD-CAINE CEO, Health Justice Australia
LOTTIE TURNER Partnerships Director, Health Justice Australia
Health justice partnership in a time of pandemic How collaboration has helped health and legal services meet the needs of the most vulnerable in their communities during COVID-19.
…patients who are seen in clinical settings may
prominent in communities with poor quality
well have problems in their everyday lives that
housing, low-paid or unstable employment and
may be causing or exacerbating their mental and
inadequate access to healthcare.
physical ill health or may be getting in the way of
Within the health profession, it is becoming
their recovery. If we do not tackle these everyday
increasingly clear how the environment in which
‘practical health’ issues then we are fighting the
a person is born and raised impacts their health.
clinical fight with one hand tied behind our back
Less understood is how closely this evidence aligns
— (Sir Michael Marmot in The role of advice
with the role legal problems play in individual
services in health outcomes: evidence review and
wellbeing.
mapping study, Advice Services Alliance and The Low Commission, 2015, p. 7).
Over one-fifth of people in Australia experience three or more legal problems in a given year. Far
The COVID-19 pandemic is a stark reminder of
from the dramatisation of crime and courts that
the hurt and injustice caused by health inequity.
influence popular conceptions of law, legal need
Across the world, vulnerability to the virus is
is most commonly experienced in the everyday > The Health Advocate • AUGUST 2020
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