Health Dept withdraws inaccurate anatomy posters

ABORIGINAL health posters riddled with anatomical errors will have to be scrapped, but the federal government won't say how much the embarrassing bungle has cost.

The Department of Health has put out an immediate recall for posters of women's anatomy produced as part of the government's Live Longer campaign and sent to indigenous health services across the country.

Opposition indigenous health spokesman Andrew Laming says the poster “fiasco” includes embarrassing errors, such as lungs being labelled as the stomach, ovaries being labelled kidneys, and showing two pancreas organs.

The poster, titled Female Human Anatomy, confuses the stomach with the lungs and incorrectly labels the ovaries as kidneys.

It also has an arrow pointing to the intestine, but instead calls it the stomach. The poster also shows two pancreases.

The poster is part of the Government's Living Longer program aimed at improving the health outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

It was taken down from the campaign's website today.

Opposition Indigenous health spokesman Andrew Laming says the campaign has been "severely undermined" by the errors.

"The lack of any attention to detail in these posters is an insult to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders that were the target audience for this material," Dr Laming said.

"[Indigenous Health] Minister Warren Snowdon needs to immediately recall these inaccurate posters and correct them."

Mr Snowdon's office says the Department of Health and Ageing is currently in the process of recalling the inaccurate posters.

"It is unacceptable and shouldn't have gone out. I've asked for all affected posters to be recalled immediately," Mr Snowdon said in a statement.

The department says 171 posters were sent out and it has begun contacting local health workers who received the incorrect information.

"The image printed and distributed had some errors that crept in during the preparation of the final printartwork files and which unfortunately were missed in the final checking process," the department said in a statement.

The poster was distributed to health workers as part of Labor's Living Longer campaign.

The total cost for the design, artwork, printing and distribution of 171 of the 2,000 posters was $2,060.

The program was developed by the Health Department to raise awareness of preventable diseases and promote healthier lifestyles in regional and remote communities.

“The oesophagus (food tube) runs into the lung,” Dr Laming said in a statement.

“The ureters look like they join to the small intestine instead of the kidneys, and the bladder is sitting on top of the uterus.”

“The lack of any attention to detail in these posters is an insult to the (indigenous people) who were the target audience for this material,” he said.

Indigenous Health Minister Warren Snowdon said in a statement the posters were “unacceptable and shouldn't have gone out”.

His office declined to comment on how much had been spent on the posters and how many had been distributed.