David Scrimgeour AM (OH ’67) – OHA Medallist, 2016
The OHA Medal is awarded to an Old Haileyburian in recognition and appreciation of exceptional achievement to the community beyond expectation in their field of endeavour.
Dr. Scrimgeour AM (OH ’67) graduated from Haileybury in 1967 where he had been a boarder at the South Road campus, and studied medicine at the University of Melbourne. A few years after graduating he began working as a GP with the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress in Alice Springs, and subsequently spent many years as a clinician and public health physician contributing to the design and delivery of primary health care services for Aboriginal people in many parts of Australia, particularly in the Western Desert region of NT, SA and WA, and with a focus on community control of health services. He has worked with a number of Aboriginal communities who returned from missions and government settlements to re-occupy the lands from which they had been removed. In the 1980s he was involved in the health care of the last two groups of desert nomads to make contact with modern Australia. He is currently Medical Director of Spinifex Health Service at Tjuntjuntjara in WA, arguably the most remote Aboriginal community in Australia. He has a Master’s degree in Public Health from Harvard University, and is an adjunct associate professor in the Discipline of Public Health at the University of Adelaide. In 2009 he was awarded an Order of Australia for his contribution to health service delivery and public health research for remote Aboriginal communities. A truly remarkable career.
Dr. Scrimgeour is the 9th recipient of the OHA Medal, following in the footsteps of the following wonderful members of our community;
2008 : Hon Justice Lex Lasry (’66)
2009 : Mr. Tony Taggart (’69)
2010 : Dr. Ian Watterson (’75)
2011 : Professor Geoffrey Cleghorn (’71)
2012 : Professor Simon Molesworth AO AM (’71)
2013 : Mr. Ian Henderson (’70)
2014: Dr Ross Sundberg AM QC (’60)
2015 : Mr. Robin Fildes AM OAM (’58)
