Northern Health recognises that our service users and our staff are diverse in many different ways. We actively promote respect and inclusion, and we recognise and appreciate individual differences.
Diversity can be with respect to age, disability, gender, sexual identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, cultural and linguistic background, ethnicity, religious or spiritual beliefs.
Click here to read Northern Health’s Gender Equality Action Plan 2021-2025.
Click to read Northern Health’s Reconciliation Action Plan 2024-26.
Developing our second innovative Reconciliation Action Plan: many of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander partners have made a significant contribution to the development of the plan including what is important to the Aboriginal community.
LGBTQA+
Northern Health is committed to equity, diversity and inclusion for all members of its community, including LGBTIQA+. We acknowledge that identity has a significant impact on health outcomes. We are committed to improving the health outcomes of our LGBTIQA+ consumers, as well as ensuring we provide a safe and inclusive environment for LGBTIQA+ staff.
Northern Health takes tangible steps to achieve this including:
- Our staff-led Rainbow Working Group to specifically champion LGBTIQA+ equity at Northern Health.
- Mandatory diversity awareness training.
- Offering specific courses on LGBTIQA+ inclusive practice that are available to all staff.
- Giving visibility to and holding events for LGBTIQA+ days of significance such as IDAHOBIT, Trans Day of Visibility, Wear It Purple Day and Pride.
- Engaging with our local LGBTIQA+ community and to hear and learn from their expertise and lived experience.
While we have done good work to improve equity, diversity and inclusion Northern Health acknowledges that there is still a long way to go in truly achieving these outcomes, both for our health network and in the world more broadly.
Resources
Northern Health has put together a list of resources that our LGBTIQA+ consumers, their families, friends and allies can access for support.
Talk to Us
We encourage our LGBTIQA+ consumers to give feedback on their experiences, positive or negative, and any suggestions for what we can do better. Consumers can do this here.
Northern Health has a consumer committee that helps give us important feedback on the care we provide and decisions we make. We also have consumers on many of our committees to give a community perspective. If you might be interested in volunteering to be a LGBTIQA+ consumer to use your voice to help guide us towards better care please you can find more information and contact details here.
