The Doomadgee Shire Council and Yallagundgimarra Health Council held a community event on Wednesday to provide an opportunity for reflection, truth-telling and reconciliation.  Gidgee Healing Board and CEO were invited to the event, which was accepted and attended by our Chair, William Blackley; Directors Margaret (Tommy) Senden and Jacob Takurit; and our CEO, Dr Manjit Sekhon.   Dr Sekhon's opening statement is reproduced in full, below.  

Opening Statement by Dr Manjit Sekhon

Wednesday, 27 May 2026

For those I have not yet had the opportunity to meet, my name is Dr Manjit Sekhon, and I am the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Medical Officer of Gidgee Healing.

Today, the Board members and leadership of Gidgee Healing have gathered here on the lands of the Waanyi, Gangalidda and Garawa peoples at the formal invitation of the Doomadgee Aboriginal Shire Council, extended by Mayor Fred O'Keefe and Chairperson Elaine Cairns.

 We acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians of these lands and waters and pay our deepest respects to Elders past and present. We thank the people of Doomadgee for allowing us to gather, walk and work on Country.

This Country has sustained and protected generations of people who have endured removal, dispossession and hardship, yet have continued to protect identity, culture and the inherent rights of First Nations peoples. We honour the resilience, wisdom and strength that continue to guide the Doomadgee community today.

We also acknowledge the emerging leaders of this community who will continue the important work of protecting culture, caring for Country and advancing the wellbeing of future generations.

 Today, we have come together on these lands in a spirit of sharing, truth-telling and deep listening. But deep listening must lead to meaningful action.

 Communities such as Doomadgee have carried the weight of consultations, meetings, frameworks, reports and promises for generations. Too often, people have been asked to repeatedly tell their stories without seeing meaningful improvements in the way services are delivered to them.

 For Gidgee Healing, trust is not built through ceremonies, signatures or photographs. Trust is built when people can access better healthcare, when services work together effectively, when information is shared appropriately, and when patients experience safer, more responsive care.

 Communities do not measure progress by the number of statements signed. They measure it by whether systems and services behave differently afterwards.

 In that spirit, I wish to respectfully state at the outset that neither I nor the representatives of Gidgee Healing present today consent to photography, media promotion or publicity material associated with our participation in today's proceedings.

This position is not intended as disrespect to any person or organisation present. Rather, it reflects our belief that the focus of today must remain on truth-telling, accountability, deep listening and meaningful action, not public optics or symbolic representation.

Gidgee Healing values partnership deeply. However, we also recognise the importance of maintaining our independence and autonomy as an Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation so that we may continue to advocate honestly, respectfully and without compromise for the people and communities we serve.

Our responsibility, first and foremost, is to the community.

 We are here to listen respectfully, speak truthfully and advocate for meaningful outcomes that extend beyond this room and into people's everyday lived realities.

Today we are gathered for what has been called the 'Truth Telling and Reconciliation Day' in Doomadgee. We acknowledge that this event forms part of the response to recommendations arising from the Queensland Coroner's Inquest into the deaths associated with the Doomadgee RHO Cluster.

These recommendations focused on rebuilding trust and relationships: between healthcare providers and services, and between the community and the healthcare system.

I would like to respectfully note the intent behind this process, while also expressing my belief that true restoration and healing are strongest when led from within the community itself.

History has repeatedly shown that one of the most damaging impacts of colonisation was the forced separation of people from their families, communities and culture. Culture is not symbolic. Culture is simply a people's way of living, relating and understanding the world.

Even amongst broader Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, each community holds its own distinct cultural identity, connection to Country and way of doing things. Because of this, local leadership and lived experience must remain central to any genuine restorative process.

We have been advised that Gidgee Healing would be given the opportunity today to publicly state how we intend to improve healthcare delivery in Doomadgee.

It is therefore both my privilege and responsibility to stand here today and state clearly:

The principles being discussed today are already deeply embedded in the way Gidgee Healing works alongside community.  

Gidgee Healing is an Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, an ACCHO. 

ACCHOs were born from the resilience, self-determination and leadership of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in response to longstanding barriers to healthcare access and equity.

These organisations exist because communities understood that culturally safe and effective healthcare must be shaped, led and delivered by the people themselves.

Today, Gidgee Healing is recognised as the largest ACCHO in Queensland, and one of the largest ACCHOs in Australia.

Our Doomadgee Primary Health Care Centre is staffed predominantly by local people, and approximately 70% of Gidgee Healing's workforce across the organisation identifies as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

We are accredited against RACGP standards, recognised nationally as an accredited GP training organisation, and have remained a sustainable and accountable organisation despite intense scrutiny and regulatory oversight.

 But my greatest aspiration for the Doomadgee clinic is simple:

 That one day, I will proudly say that every single staff member, including doctors and nurses, comes from Doomadgee itself.

 That is what true self-determination looks like. So today, I repeat our position:

Gidgee Healing will not do anything different as a result of this event, because the principles being discussed here today are already embedded in who we are and how we work.

Gidgee Healing is guided by nine core values:

Culture

Respect

Community

Relationships

Self-Determination

Responsibility

Accountability

Excellence

Sustainability

 At the centre of these values is Culture.

For us, culture is not a document on a wall. It is not a policy statement. It is how we live, work, relate and care for one another.

When Gidgee Healing enters a community, respect begins long before we cross a township boundary. It begins from the moment we enter Country, recognising the people whose ancestors walked these lands, cared for these waters and raised generations here.

Respect is not an obligation imposed upon us. It is our way of working and living. Likewise, in our relationships with other healthcare providers, we are guided by trust, honesty and shared purpose, namely better health and wellbeing outcomes for the people of Doomadgee.

Gidgee Healing will continue to advocate for the social, cultural, economic and political determinants of health because healthcare cannot be separated from the systems and conditions people live within.

 We will continue to work collaboratively with all healthcare professionals in this community, including those working within Queensland Health services, because partnership is essential for better outcomes.

 But partnership also requires honesty.

And so, while Gidgee Healing remains committed to collaboration, we will also continue to speak openly about the systemic barriers that continue to disadvantage the people of Doomadgee and remote communities across Queensland.

These issues include:

Inadequate clinical information sharing between Queensland Health systems and community-controlled healthcare providers;

Limited access to vital patient information, such as the RHO Register Inequitable accommodation arrangements for frontline healthcare workers Ongoing inequities within the Patient Travel Subsidy Scheme; and

There is an urgent need for local renal dialysis services so community members are not forced to spend their most vulnerable years away from home and family.

There are people from this community currently living away from Country while receiving dialysis treatment, separated from family, culture and community support.

We must ask ourselves:

 Who is speaking for these people? When are they coming home?

 As a primary healthcare provider, Gidgee Healing remains committed to:

 - serving the people of Doomadgee with integrity;

- working to the highest professional and moral standards; and

- continuing to advocate fearlessly for those whose voices are too often unheard.

We honour those who have passed.

We will respect those who stand with us today.

And we will nurture those who will carry this community forward tomorrow.

 Most importantly, Gidgee Healing will continue to speak for those who can no longer speak for themselves, and for those whose voices are too often silenced by systems that fail to listen.

 

Thank you.

Dr Manjit Sekhon

Chief Executive Officer and Chief Medical Officer Gidgee Healing