At 14, Stuart Yiwarr McGrath made a radical decision that would change the course of his life.<\/p>\n
Orphaned at 12, he had spent years bouncing around the homes of different relatives on the tiny island of Galiwin\u2019ku (Elcho Island) on the northernmost tip of Australia, before he received a phone call from his aunty in Canberra asking if he wanted to live with her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t really speak English,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI just said, \u2018Yes, I will come\u2019 and then hung up. I was on the plane the next day.\u201d<\/p>\n
The experience set him on a path that would see him become Australia\u2019s first Yol\u014bu registered nurse \u2013 winning national accolades<\/a> and starring<\/a> on reality TV show The Amazing Race along the way.<\/p>\n McGrath grew up in Mata Mata in north-east Arnhem Land, a coastal community with six houses where the Yol\u014bu people lived off the land, eating mud mussels, mangrove worms, dugongs and stingrays. His mother and grandmother taught Yol\u014bu education at the local school. A white teacher was flown in once a week to teach in English, otherwise Yol\u014bu Matha was the dominant language \u2013 or, as McGrath puts it, \u201cthe language you dream in\u201d.<\/p>\n Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n His father, a white man, died in a quad bike accident when McGrath was five. His mother became unwell in her 40s, experiencing weakness and persistent chest pain. After a long process trying to access healthcare, a specialist in Darwin identified her disease as something akin to lupus, whereby the body\u2019s immune system attacks its own tissues and organs. She went straight into palliative care.<\/p>\n McGrath believes language barriers and a lack of cultural and health literacy \u201con both sides\u201d contributed to the delayed diagnosis.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it was just two worlds not actually understanding each other and colliding,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n His mother\u2019s experience is not unique. Australia\u2019s race discrimination commissioner this week declared racism \u201ca public health emergency\u201d after a sweeping review<\/a> of 100 studies showed the consequences of racism in the health system could be fatal.<\/p>\n McGrath in Arnhem Land. Photograph: UNSW\/Becky Laurence<\/p>\n When McGrath arrived in Canberra, he could read and write in English, but was not confident to speak it. For a year, he used a whiteboard to communicate with his father\u2019s non-Indigenous family \u2013 relaying messages about how his day was or whether he could go to the cinema that weekend.<\/p>\n His Canberra high school was \u201c99% white kids\u201d. McGrath remembers being introduced to another student who told him: \u201cI don\u2019t shake no black man\u2019s hand.\u201d<\/p>\n It was his first experience of racism.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t know what that word meant because I came from a place where that didn\u2019t exist,\u201d he says. \u201cIt just made me feel like less of a human, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n After two years in Canberra, McGrath returned to Arnhem Land and completed his schooling at a Darwin boarding school but found himself viewing his circumstances through a new lens.<\/p>\n McGrath was named 2021 NT Young Australian of the Year for his efforts to improve cultural safety in healthcare. Photograph: UNSW\/Becky Laurence<\/p>\n \u201cI realised that we weren\u2019t the lucky Australians,\u201d he says. \u201cI started comparing things, like oh there\u2019s overcrowding, there\u2019s a shortage of food all the time \u2013 I\u2019m always freaking hungry. Sometimes violence blows out here and there.\u201d<\/p>\n He stresses that these were structural, not cultural problems: \u201cThis is not Yol\u014bu culture. These are symptoms of poverty.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the most stark disparities that had become clear to McGrath was the health gap between black and white Australia. Yol\u014bu people experience the country\u2019s highest number<\/a> of avoidable deaths, mostly from chronic disease. Rates of diabetes and rheumatic heart disease are among the highest in the world<\/a>.<\/p>\n McGrath had seen too many friends and family die young. His best friend killed himself aged 18. Funerals were a regular occurrence throughout his childhood and few people lived beyond their 50s.<\/p>\n We cannot close the gap in health outcomes without confronting the racism that underpins itGiridharan Sivaraman<\/p>\n \u201cI realised the missing link is that none of us are in the health system,\u201d McGrath says.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n He became an Aboriginal health practitioner, then enrolled to study at university \u2013 a \u201cforeign concept\u201d in his family. He completed his bachelor of nursing at Charles Darwin University over five years, juggling study and parenting as a single father of two daughters.<\/p>\n