Yarning Along the Murray River was an initiative launched on the Border in 2013 by the Hume Regional Integrated Cancer Service to educate Aboriginal health workers about cancer and treatments so they could encourage the indigenous community to seek help for the disease.

On Tuesday five art canvasses, created by prisoners at Beechworth Correctional Centre, were donated to the project and will be hung in the oncology ward at Albury-Wodonga Health, Wodonga’s Murray Valley Radiation Oncology Centre and the Hume Regional Integrated Cancer Service office.

Murray Valley Radiation Oncology Centre site manager Sue Young said Aboriginal people diagnosed with cancer died 15 years earlier than non-indigenous patients.

“There is also a higher rate of death,” Ms Young said.

“They tend to present later.”

Hume Regional Integrated Cancer Service Aboriginal project officer Valda Murray said the service wanted to educate people and encourage them to access treatment earlier to have a better chance of survival.

“As an Aboriginal health worker I’ve seen cancer can be a taboo subject,” she said.

“It wasn’t something that could be talked about and was always seen as a death sentence.”

One artwork, which is a series of three paintings, shows turtles at play in a healthy river.

Another painting is of algae-infected waters to represent cancer.

Hume Regional Integrated Cancer Service Yarning Along the Murray River project co-ordinator Robyn Sharman said the art at the oncology centres would reduce the barriers between the services and Aboriginal people.

“It will help them to feel more comfortable,” she said.