'I feel guilty for not realising he was in this predicament. Mr Williams said until he received the health worker's call he was unaware of Dr Yunupingu's living and health situation. 'And I think all of us need to take some responsibility to help work towards better outcomes for Aboriginal people.' Loading. 'We have to redouble our efforts to Closing the Gap and we all need to be part of recognising that the Indigenous people that we are friends with, that we socialise with, that we work with, their life expectancy is not as great as mine as a non-Indigenous person,' he said. Mark Grose, the managing director of Skinnyfish, Dr Yunupingu's record label, said the singer's health issues stemmed from his childhood illness and 'his early childhood marked him out for passing away early'. 'But some people don't like dialysis, and when he didn't want to do dialysis he used to hide.' 'We all must take responsibility for Closing the Gap'

'He had an enormous support team of family and doctors and an extended social group here and out bush,' Mr Hohnen said. We were upset about this,' he said.ĭr Yunupingu's Skinnyfish Music producer and regular spokesman, Michael Hohnen, said the singer had been in hospital seven times over the past year after avoiding going to dialysis 'because he hated it'. 'I believe he was dragged by other family members. 'When he's missing sometimes I tell other family members to go and grab him.' Loading.Īsked whether he believed there was enough done to make sure his relative underwent dialysis treatment, Mr Marika said it was an issue that concerned him. And when I found out last night, I was very, very unhappy about that,' Mr Marika told the ABC. 'I heard that he was last week over in the long grass.

Witiyana Marika, the spokesman for Dr Yunupingu's family, said he was saddened when he heard last week, and on Tuesday, that his relative had been living rough in Darwin - called 'long grassing' locally.

All my friends are wasted marc fould