NAIDOC Week (5-12 July), the annual celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, histories and achievements, turns 50 this year. Its theme for 2026 is ‘50 Years of Deadly’, in honour of leaders and communities who helped build the movement. The Lamp spoke to NSWNMA member Michelle Cutmore, inaugural president of the Association’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Member Circle.

Australia’s first Aboriginal Medical Service (AMS) opened in 1971 as a shopfront on Regent Street in Redfern, an inner suburb of Sydney. 

Founded as a co-operative, Redfern AMS pioneered the concept of Aboriginal health care controlled by local communities. 

Today, Redfern AMS is one of 41 healthcare organisations (ACCHOs) in NSW governed by Aboriginal communities and funded by the NSW Ministry of Health. 

NSWNMA member RN Michelle Cutmore started as an Aboriginal Health Worker at Redfern AMS in 1993. 

There were no formal training courses for the role, but it launched her 33-year career in Aboriginal health in both ACCHOs and state health departments in NSW and Queensland. 

“We were learning in a demountable building on site with doctors, dentists, nurses and Aboriginal leaders as our teachers. The course was funded by the former ATSIC (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission),” she said. 

Michelle, who comes from a family of five children, was the first to complete university studies, in 2008. 

She did a Bachelor of Nursing as a mature aged student at the University of Western Sydney, because “I realised that nursing would allow me a greater scope of practice and management 
of the issues faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people”. 

Michelle currently works as a nurse at Aboriginal medical services in Gamilaroi country of Moree (her hometown) and Bowen, Queensland.  

She says access to training for Aboriginal health workers has greatly improved since she started out in the 1990s. 

“There are now registered training organisations that conduct Certificate III and IV training that can ultimately lead to registration with AHPRA as an Aboriginal Health Practitioner (AHP),” she says.  

Michelle believes AHPs working at the top of their scope of practice can play a greater leadership role in how Aboriginal community health services are delivered. 

AHPs who are embedded in their communities are best positioned to lead community clinics and thereby foster culturally safe care and better community outcomes, she says. 

“AHPs live and work in their home community, and they understand kinship and community relationships. They know what’s going on with sorry business and why people aren’t able to make it to appointments, for example. 

“AHP-led clinics are our future because they are key to self-determination. 

“While a few services are transitioning to AHP-led models, most still operate under a medical model of care with doctor–nurse.” 

Michelle says many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples experience a loss of dignity through being treated as second-class citizens in the healthcare system, which undermines their health outcomes.  

In The Lamp (Letters, February–March 2026 edition) she welcomed the formation of the NSW Anti-Racism Collaborative, which brings together the NSWNMA, state government, healthcare professionals and the Australian Human Rights Commission to tackle racism in the health sector. 

The Collaborative arose from a 2024 NSWNMA survey of racism in the health and aged care sectors. 

It found that 70 per cent of nurses, midwives, AiNs, and care workers believe racism exists in their workplace. 

“Being part of the NSWNMA Anti- Racism Collaborative matters to me because racism is finally being named,” she said. 

“Too often, [racism] operates quietly through systems of power and control, directing the narrative of who feels safe, respected, and heard.  

“The same systems that uphold culturally unsafe workplaces for staff also compromise the quality of care provided to our communities.” 

Michelle’s own attempts to raise issues relating to cultural safety have met resistance. 

She cites two recent examples: being told not to use the term  “Blak” (intentionally spelled without “c” to reject colonialism) and being asked to be “less proud” of her Aboriginal identity because it made others uncomfortable. 

“Racism is about taking away people’s power. It’s not seeing them. It’s not hearing them,” she said. 

Michelle said NSWNMA’s formation of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Member Circle more than two years ago has “created space” for Aboriginal nurses and midwives to put issues before Association decision-making forums.  

Sally Goold’s pioneering legacy  

Michelle Cutmore paid tribute to the late Sally Goold, who achieved a series of ‘firsts’ in Aboriginal nursing. 

Dr Goold, who died in 2025, left school at 14 and became the first Aboriginal nursing student in NSW – at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital – at just 16.  

She was the first Aboriginal nurse in NSW, the first nurse employed at the Redfern AMS in 1971, and the founding director of Congress of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Nurses (CATSIN), later renamed CATSINaM to incorporate midwives. 

Her studies culminated in a master’s degree in nursing at Flinders University, researching the question, “Why are there so few Aboriginal registered nurses?”  

In marking her passing, CATSINaM said Dr Goold’s findings of racism imposed upon Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, and the lack of student support, inspired her leadership and advocacy as the organisation’s founding director. 

Dr Goold received the Medal of the Order of Australia in 1986 for her services to nursing education and Aboriginal health, was awarded a Doctor of Nursing, Honoris Causa, from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 2002, and was Senior Australian of the Year in 2006.