Australia prides itself on a healthcare system built on equity, compassion, and universal access. We, Muslim healthcare professionals working across general practice, hospitals, mental health services, and community health throughout this country, write in the spirit of that shared commitment. We write because the evidence now shows clearly that Islamophobia is undermining it.

This is not a statement of grievance. It is a call, grounded in Australian research and the lived realities of our patients and colleagues, for the policy reforms that will allow our health system to live up to its own values.

1. The Scale of the Problem in Australia

Islam is the second largest religion in Australia. According to the 2021 Census, over 813,000 Australians identify as Muslim, representing 3.2 per cent of the national population — a community as diverse in ethnicity, culture, language and background as Australia itself. Yet this community experiences disproportionate barriers to healthcare access, and the professionals who serve them face significant workplace discrimination.

The Islamophobia Register Australia’s most recent report — covering 2023 and 2024 — recorded 309 in-person Islamophobic incidents, more than double the annual average of previous reporting periods. Online hostility has risen equally sharply, with 366 verified incidents — again more than twice earlier rates. These are not fringe events. They reflect a social environment in which Muslim Australians, including those working in and accessing healthcare, face a sustained pattern of prejudice.

Critically, nearly 75 per cent of victims of in-person Islamophobic incidents are Muslim women and girls — many of them visibly Muslim through their dress. This is directly relevant to healthcare: Muslim women in clinical settings, whether as patients or as professionals, bear a disproportionate burden of this harm.

2. What the Research Tells Us About Muslim Patients

The health consequences of discrimination are well established in the scientific literature. For Muslim Australians, Islamophobia functions as a chronic stressor — one that is associated with elevated rates of psychological distress, depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress. Research consistently shows that the cumulative, daily nature of faith-based discrimination drives long-term mental health harm, and that exposure in childhood compounds that risk significantly.

Of equal concern is the effect on healthcare-seeking behaviour. Australian and international research indicates that Muslim patients — particularly women in visible Islamic dress — avoid accessing care when they anticipate discrimination. They report feeling unwelcome, misunderstood, or fearful that their faith will be met with judgment rather than compassion. A study of multicultural wellbeing among an Australian Muslim community found that feeling safe, and having access to religiously appropriate support, was identified as a crucial determinant of health outcomes. When that sense of safety is absent, people disengage from services that could otherwise help them.

This matters for the entire health system. Delayed presentation, reduced treatment adherence, and avoidance of preventive care all generate downstream costs — for patients, for communities, and for the public health budget.

3. The Hidden Crisis in Our Workforce

In 2024, a national survey of 358 healthcare professionals — conducted by researchers from Federation University Australia, the University of Sydney, the University of Notre Dame Australia, and Western Sydney University, in partnership with the Australian Islamic Medical Association — documented the scale of discrimination facing Muslim clinicians. The findings are sobering.

Muslim healthcare workers, particularly women wearing hijab, reported widespread religious and racial discrimination — from patients and from colleagues and managers alike. Sixty per cent reported moderate to high levels of psychological distress, with rates higher among women and those with chronic health conditions. The discrimination was not incidental; it was structural, embedded in institutional cultures and management practices rather than limited to isolated interpersonal incidents.

A participant in that research described the moment a patient refused her care, saying: ‘I don’t have to listen to a Muslim.’ This is not an isolated story. It is a pattern. And the consequences extend well beyond individual distress.

Researchers and clinician leaders are warning that persistent discrimination risks driving Muslim healthcare professionals — disproportionately represented in underserved, regional, and outer-metropolitan communities — out of the workforce entirely. In a country already facing healthcare workforce shortages, particularly in areas of high need, this is a risk the health system cannot afford to ignore.

Notably, the 2025 Australian Islamic Medical Association National Conference heard research findings showing no significant difference in reported Islamophobia between Muslim and non-Muslim healthcare professionals in the same settings. Discrimination in healthcare workplaces does not stay contained within any one group — it corrodes the culture for everyone who works there.

4. What We Are Asking For

The Australian Islamic Medical Association, and the Muslim healthcare professionals who stand behind this statement, are not asking for special treatment. We are asking for the conditions that allow every patient to receive dignified, effective care — and every clinician to do their job without fear of abuse or discrimination. The following policy commitments would make a meaningful difference.

For the Federal Government and Health Ministers:

• Formally recognise Islamophobia as a social determinant of health within the National Preventive Health Strategy and relevant federal health policy frameworks, with dedicated data collection on faith-based discrimination across healthcare settings.
• Commission longitudinal, Australia-specific research into the health impacts of Islamophobia, disaggregated by gender, ethnicity, immigration status, and geography, to fill the critical evidence gaps identified in existing literature.
• Ensure that the National Health Workforce Strategy explicitly addresses religious discrimination as a workforce retention issue, particularly in relation to underserved and regional communities.

For State and Territory Health Departments:

• Mandate culturally and religiously responsive training across all public health workforce pathways, with specific, evidence-based content on Islamophobia, its health impacts, and the diversity of the Australian Muslim community.
• Establish clear, accessible, and independently overseen mechanisms for both patients and healthcare workers to report faith-based discrimination — with published data on outcomes and accountability measures.
• Require all public hospitals and health facilities to conduct environmental audits for religious equity: prayer spaces, chaplaincy representation, halal dietary provision, and gender-concordant care options where clinically appropriate.

For Health Institutions and Hospital Networks:

• Implement zero-tolerance policies for religious discrimination that are visibly enforced at executive level and applied consistently to both patient-directed and colleague-directed conduct.
• Adopt trauma-informed care frameworks that explicitly account for the experience of patients who may have experienced faith-based discrimination within — as well as outside — healthcare settings.
• Actively engage with Muslim community organisations and the Australian Islamic Medical Association to co-design culturally safe care pathways and workforce support initiatives.

5. A Stronger Health System for All Australians

We recognise and are grateful that Australia has made genuine progress in building a multicultural society and a health system that strives to serve everyone. The frameworks exist. The values are articulated. What is needed now is their consistent application to the experience of Muslim Australians.

The research is clear: when Muslim patients feel safe and respected, they engage with healthcare earlier, more consistently, and more effectively. When Muslim clinicians are supported rather than subjected to discrimination, they remain in the workforce and continue providing care — often in the communities that need them most. These are not outcomes that benefit only Muslim Australians. They strengthen the system for everyone.

We offer this statement in the hope that it will be received in the spirit in which it is written — not as a critique of Australian healthcare, but as an evidence-based contribution to making it better. We stand ready to work collaboratively with government, institutions, and our non-Muslim colleagues toward the healthcare system all Australians deserve.

Key sources: Islamophobia in Australia Report V (Islamophobia Register Australia, 2025); AIMA/Federation University Australia National Healthcare Survey (2024); Patmisari et al. (2022); Samari (2016), American Journal of Public Health; AIMA National Conference proceedings (2025). Full references available on request.