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Figure 9.7.5 Communication with service providers, Indigenous people aged15 years or over, 2002 aRemoteNon-remote2520Per cent151050Has difficultyunderstandingHas difficulty beingunderstoodHas difficultyunderstanding andbeing understoodTotal experiencingdifficultya Error bars represent 95 per cent confidence intervals around each estimate.Source: ABS 2002 NATSISS (unpublished); table 9A.7.5.• Indigenous people living in remote areas in 2002 were more likely to reportdifficulty communicating with service providers (18.1 per cent) than Indigenouspeople living in non-remote areas (7.4 per cent) (figure 9.7.5).• In 2002, Indigenous people living in remote areas were approximately five timesas likely than Indigenous people in non-remote areas to have difficulty bothunderstanding and being understood by service providers (figure 9.7.5).• Indigenous people aged 55 years and over had the most difficultycommunicating with service providers (14.1 per cent) (table 9A.7.7).• There was no statistically significant difference in the proportion of Indigenouspeople having difficulty communicating with service providers in 1994 and 2002(ABS 2004).Data on difficulty communicating with service providers by State and Territory arein table 9A.7.6.The National Hospital Morbidity Database provides information on the rate thatIndigenous people discharge themselves from hospital against medical advice.These data do not provide the reasons why some Indigenous and non-Indigenouspeople choose to discharge themselves against medical advice and if there weredifferences between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people’s reasons. These datado not provide information on the nature of the person’s medical condition. In theabsence of research to the contrary, it may be possible that the Indigenous andnon-Indigenous differences in discharge against medical advice may be a reflectionOVERCOMINGINDIGENOUSDISADVANTAGE 2007