For Australian Aborigines, the Health Problems of Westernization

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http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/11/for-australian-aborigines-the-health-problems-of-westernization/265281/



The Australian aboriginal community Mutitjulu lies in the shadow of Uluru, one of the country's most popular tourist destinations, but it could not be more different from the polished walkways and restaurants that make up the neighboring resort town of Yulara. Its modest buildings are covered in graffiti that demonstrates a remarkably thorough understanding of English profanities. Some of the houses' walls are pocked with holes, and the sandy grounds are filled with trash ranging from empty Coke bottles to a wrapper for something called "Magic Foot Candy." While Yulara seems designed to give vacationing tourists all the services they could ask for, Mutitjulu is equipped with only the most elemental hallmarks of Western civilization: a school, a health clinic, a general store.

Dr. Janelle Trees, general practitioner at the desert community's health clinic, describes the conditions that many of its roughly 300 residents live in as "extreme squalor." But for Kinyin McKenzie, a lanky aborigine who returned to Mutitjulu in late September to see relatives and attend a meeting about possible development projects, the place is just home.

"When I come back home, I'm happy because my family's there," he says, his smile revealing an abundance of missing teeth. "We sit around together and talk together, have meal[s] together."

About three years ago, McKenzie had to move to the central Australian town of Alice Springs -- around 300 miles from Mutitjulu -- for a reason that has become increasingly common among Australia's indigenous population: dialysis. His kidneys were failing, and if he did not get treatment to replace the blood cleaning work that they used to do, he was not going to survive.