When Vic­ki first heard she had been nom­i­nat­ed for the Order of Aus­tralia Medal (OAM) this year, she thought it was a scam.

“I am a hum­ble per­son, I just do the work,” she says. 

“It’s true I may have been the voice for Abo­rig­i­nal pri­ma­ry health in the Kim­ber­ley, but there is a whole team of peo­ple behind me doing a lot of the work… This medal is for all the teams I’ve worked with.”

Vic­ki, who has worked as a strate­gic leader in Abo­rig­i­nal Com­mu­ni­ty Con­trolled Health (ACCH) for near­ly 20 years, received her OAM for her involve­ment in Indige­nous affairs and Indige­nous health in the Kim­ber­ley and across the state. She comes from a long line of fam­i­ly mem­bers who speak up and are the voice for their community.

Her mum Elsa Archer received the OAM four years ago for ser­vices to the com­mu­ni­ty, and her aunt Carmel Moore, her dad’s sis­ter, received it about 20 years ago for her involve­ment with the CWA. Her dad, who died at 57, was involved in the Shire, speed­way and many com­mu­ni­ty clubs.

“I put it down to my upbring­ing,” says Vic­ki, whose dad was Abo­rig­i­nal, her mum non-Indige­nous. She learned over the years to speak up for her­self, for Abo­rig­i­nal com­mu­ni­ties, for Abo­rig­i­nal health, to become a voice, to make a mark.

“We’ve a way to go, but we’ve come a long way,” says Vic­ki. ​“We are now at the table with a voice that is heard – but there are still occa­sions we have to knock at the door, and loud­ly, to point out that we are here.”

With a Diplo­ma busi­ness degree, Vicki’s work­ing life began in WA State Health and then with Abo­rig­i­nal Affairs. She then became CEO of Der­by Abo­rig­i­nal Health Ser­vice for 12 years and has been the CEO of the Kim­ber­ley Abo­rig­i­nal Med­ical Ser­vices (KAMS) in Broome for the past sev­en years. KAMS pro­vides advo­ca­cy and ser­vices to mem­ber ser­vices, across over 15 remote clin­ics. 80 per cent of clients are Indigenous.

“I’ve always had a pas­sion to work in this field, to try and give back and pro­vide advo­ca­cy for health for Indige­nous peo­ple,” says Vic­ki, who is proud of the com­pre­hen­sive approach of the Abo­rig­i­nal Com­mu­ni­ty Con­trolled Health Ser­vice (ACCHS) which began in Red­fern in NSW over 40 years ago, and came very soon to WA. Broome was the first in the Kimberley.

“We were in front pro­vid­ing com­pre­hen­sive pri­ma­ry health care which is all about well­be­ing as well as acute ill­ness,” says Vicki. 

“When you go into a state health sys­tem, it is still very much that you are treat­ed for what you are there for.

“In the Abo­rig­i­nal sys­tem, it is about your whole health and well­be­ing, with fol­low-ups and refer­rals. We have strong links and part­ner­ships with main­stream health ser­vices who are now tak­ing advice from us, learn­ing from our def­i­n­i­tion of health care.

“It is a mod­el where the doc­tor, the nurs­es and the Abo­rig­i­nal Health Work­ers are all equal­ly impor­tant. I think it works well and the non-Indige­nous health work­ers who work in our sys­tem are also strong believers.

“It’s a pri­ma­ry health care and pre­ven­tion sys­tem that works to pre­vent clients going into hos­pi­tal, that enables peo­ple who are not well to be man­aged at home.”

Vic­ki is delight­ed to see that the ACCHS has grown to have a voice of its own.

“See­ing young peo­ple move into man­age­r­i­al roles, that’s some­thing you wouldn’t have seen before,” she says. 

“It’s impor­tant to back our young lead­ers and their deci­sions, and my view is, if a mis­take can be cor­rect­ed, it’s not a mistake.

“Every per­son should have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to man­age. If you don’t get that oppor­tu­ni­ty, you don’t get the experience. 

“We have some young lead­ers in their 20s, and old­er lead­ers in their 30s, and we need to sup­port them all, help them step onto the lad­der and climb.”

Vic­ki is also proud that KAMS is now the provider of all renal ser­vices in the Kim­ber­ley, win­ning the ten­der last year. 

“We have a great part­ner­ship with the WA Health Ser­vice,” she says. ​“We are bring­ing home dial­y­sis to more peo­ple, treat­ing 160 peo­ple a week.

“Our aim is to slow down Stages 1 to 3 and to tar­get pre­ven­tion by advo­cat­ing invest­ing in envi­ron­men­tal health – that means bet­ter hous­ing, bet­ter-placed rub­bish tips, food secu­ri­ty… That focus would help great­ly with a num­ber of oth­er ill­ness­es too, includ­ing dia­betes and cardio-vascular.

“The fact is, you get sick for a rea­son,” says Vicki. 

A study has shown that pri­ma­ry dis­ease, accord­ing to the World Health Organ­i­sa­tion def­i­n­i­tion, was the rea­son why most Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple spent time in hos­pi­tal over a peri­od of a year in WA, cost­ing the state $14 million.

“Gov­ern­ments need to focus on the front end,” says Vic­ki, ​“deal­ing with over­crowd­ing, for exam­ple, and spend­ing mon­ey on all those envi­ron­men­tal issues, rather than the bricks and mor­tar of new hospitals.”

Vic­ki is also proud of the COVID-19 response from ACCHS.

“We led the way in WA,” she says. ​“In the Kim­ber­ley, we were on the front foot at the very start, deal­ing with 22 cas­es, the high­est fig­ure in any region. And we have con­tin­ued to be proactive.

“Even before the WA gov­ern­ment, with the lat­est wave, we were putting in orders for vac­cines, for RATS, for masks and mak­ing plans.”

Vic­ki believes the Kim­ber­ley region has been suc­cess­ful because of its abil­i­ty ​“to work well as a sec­tor, share infor­ma­tion to avoid over­lap and rep­e­ti­tion, get the mes­sages across to our mob to be safe.”

“We did the same with action to pro­mote the vac­cine and, with the lat­est out­break, we will be pre­pared as well as we can be. There will always be issues to be ironed out, but we will make sure we work as well as pos­si­ble with what­ev­er happens.”