What does Health Justice actually mean?
Health Justice means being able to walk into any hospital or clinic and know you will be treated with respect and receive the care you need, without fear of racism, bias or stereotyping.
But across Australia, First Nations people are still being denied safe healthcare, with laws, policies and structures that disempower communities from accessing health services. For families who experience these barriers, the consequences can be devastating.
Achieving Health Justice means dismantling these barriers to make sure care is safe for everyone.
Following World Health Day this week, National Justice Project (NJP) explores what Health Justice means and how it impacts First Nations women, families, and communities.
TALKING | With Professor Juanita Sherwood on building evidence with community
We spoke to Aboriginal Elder Professor Juanita Sherwood, a registered nurse, researcher at Jumbunna Research, and Vice-Chair Director of Waminda. With over three decades of experience, Professor Juanita has spent her career building evidence with communities to create solutions that strengthen First Nations health and wellbeing. She tells us why this work is crucial:
“I have been fortunate to be able to work with our First Nations Communities across Australia in urban, rural and remote settings over the last 30 years. These experiences have been both breathtaking and grounding, reminding me of the multiple strengths of our Peoples across Australia. Building evidence through research our way has established some vital solutions to contexts for community and their organisations that make a significant difference to their circumstances and the wellbeing of their Communities.“The context of strength-based strategies grown in our communities in response to ongoing colonial injustices and injury are the strengths our people wish to share. Through research focused on our circumstances and strategies for improving our outcomes, using our ways of knowing, being and doing require funding based upon community research. Research is a tool for building our evidence, and telling our stories, and exploring ways forward that work for us. This is the work I am gifted to undertake and become inspired so often by the way our people care about our people, to make a difference for all.”
SPOTLIGHTING | Birthing on Country program a powerful example of community-led healthcare
For more than 40 years, Waminda, South Coast Women’s Health and Wellbeing Aboriginal Corporation, has been providing culturally safe, holistic healthcare for Aboriginal women and their families.
Founded in response to the barriers First Nations women face when accessing health services, Waminda’s work shows what care can look like when it is community-led.
A major study released March 2026 found Waminda’s rural Birthing on Country model led to significantly more normal vaginal births, higher rates of exclusive breastfeeding at hospital discharge, and strong engagement with wrap-around wellbeing supports.
Their Birthing on Country program is a powerful example of health justice in action, supporting Aboriginal women through pregnancy and birth with culturally safe care.
GATHERING | The Partnership fighting for Health Justice
“Justice in healthcare means being treated with dignity, it means equity, it means not being targeted or stereotyped or turned away.” – Ariane Dozer, Head of Projects and Innovation
To achieve Health Justice, we need to work both inside and outside the courtroom.
Together with our partner organisations in the Partnership for Justice in Health (P4JH), we’re advocating for systemic cultural and policy change to eliminate racism from our health and justice systems.
The P4JH brings together First Nations health leaders, academics, legal experts, and civil society organisations to improve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and justice outcomes.
HIGHLIGHTING | More on Health Justice
- More than ambulances replacing police: What does better crisis response look like? - Police have become the default first responders to mental distress. Major service gaps across social service systems leave few options for people in crisis.
- New scholarship to improve Aboriginal health in NSW prisons - A new $5,000 annual scholarship has been created in honour of Dunghutti man to support Aboriginal health professionals working in the NSW criminal justice system.
- Coronial inquest findings lead to health policy changes - The National Justice Project has welcomed NSW Health’s formal response to wide-ranging recommendations made by a coronial inquest in 2021.
SUPPORTING | Social Justice
The National Justice Project is funded by donors committed to the fight for social justice.
As a Public Benevolent Institution, The National Justice Project is endorsed as a Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) covered by Item 1 of the table in section 30-15 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997. Donations of $2.00 or more are tax deductible.
Kind Regards,
The National Justice Project Team
MORE:
National Justice Project (NJP)
Address: PO Box 123, Broadway NSW 2007
Tel: +61 2 9514 4440
We acknowledge that we live and work on the lands of First Nations Peoples, and we pay our respects to their Elders past and present. Our Sydney office is located on the lands of the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation, whose sovereignty was never ceded. This land always was, and always will be, Aboriginal land.