I’m sure you have caught a train and noted that every time it pulls up to a station and the doors of the train automatically open, a voice tells you to "Mind the gap"! It is done so you take caution and step over the gap between the train and the station platform and don’t fall into the void and injure yourself. It got me wondering how many people fall into the gaps in care within our siloed health care and community care systems? The national health statistics indicate it is increasingly happening in both rate and severity regarding the availability and quality of healthcare for certain populations in our nation.
There are significant inequities in healthcare and health outcomes for people, based on variables such as income, social standing, race, and geography.[1] This has led to an increase in potentially preventable hospitalisations from several common causes including: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), kidney infections, urinary tract infections, cellulitis, heart failure, and diabetes complications. It should not matter whether you are an Aboriginal, a Torres Strait Islander, living with social or financial disadvantage, or living in a remote area within Australia, we should all have similar health outcomes from our health system which claims to provide universal health care. Yet, if you have any one of those factors you have a 12-18-fold increased risk of hospitalisation from that cause.[2] Now just imagine that you experience all of those factors, it will seriously compound your health risks, creating a chasm rather than a ‘gap’! Never the less we continue to hear about the need to ‘close the gap’, but the progress in closing gaps is slow in many of these important areas.
In scripture we read “I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one.” (Ezekiel 22:30 NIV). The metaphor here is of an ancient city wall, a fortified wall that protects the people living within the city walls. However, the wall has broken down and has gaping holes that enable the enemy to gain easy access to the city, to plunder and destroy. Defenders and protectors of the wall would rush to the gap to hold the breach until it was restored. The gaps needed quick quality repairs in order to maintain protection. If a breach was left unattended or unrepaired, the city became vulnerable and would likely fall.
God searched for people who would defend the city with prayerful intercession with the LORD on its behalf. He looked for wall builders, restorers, protectors, defenders… but because no one would do it, the LORD sent his judgement upon the city, and they reaped the consequences of their failures to act. In Ezekiel 13, Israel’s false prophets were condemned because they did not repair breaches in the wall. Instead of standing in the gap, they denied God’s judgement was coming. What God expects from his followers is a willingness, even an eagerness, to ‘stand in the gap’, to plead and intercede on behalf of the vulnerable, the oppressed, the besieged… asking God’s for his compassion, his mercy, his grace, his protection, his wisdom, and his guidance.
As today’s followers of Jesus, are we willing to ‘stand in the gap’! Will we be the ones to repair, restore, protect, nurture and compassionately intercede for our community, and especially the most vulnerable? This is what AFCNA seeks to promote within our nation. Followers of Jesus who care for one another, and extend their compassionate care to the most vulnerable in their community. We want to be people who intercede with prayer and follow up our prayers with actions that create transformative change - restoring, healing and protecting our community members' personal and collective ‘walls’ to ensure they are not breached by the enemy. We don’t have to look far to see where we need to begin.
In 2025 let’s not ‘mind the gap’, rather let us be the people who will ‘stand in the gap’ and bring our communities to God in prayer, and follow this up with compassionate acts of grace, mercy, support, nurture and loving care. AFCNA provides a number of short free courses to equip you with helpful understanding and tools to become effective ‘gap restorers’. AFCNA equips you to promote holistic health; prevent illness, injury and abuse; and provide effective holistic health care that promotes healing, safety, transformative growth of your community members. AFCNA has members who can conduct workshops in your faith community, via Zoom or in-person. Contact us at afcna@outlook.com to discuss these training opportunities.
Find courses we already offer here and consider partnering with us in this vital mission to be the care we want to see in our community, create faith communities were everyone is included, enabled to flourish, starting with those who are ‘falling into the gaps’ within our community.
1. Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care , 2021, ‘Patients falling through the cracks’, 5 May 2021, accessed 12 Dec 2024, https://www.safetyandquality.gov.au/newsroom/external-publications/patients-falling-through-cracks
2. op. cit.
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