On her island home, far away from talk of tax cuts and budget wins and losses, Jacqueline Amagula got the news she has been waiting and fighting for.
Thanks to the campaigning of patients like her, the Federal Government will spend $57.8 million to support the growing number of Indigenous people whose kidneys have failed.
"We are getting our freedom. People are now listening in the Government — the hierarchy are listening, giving that money out to bush," she said.
"There's been a push up from strong people with good hearts, strong people with strong brains, talking up on behalf of Australia-wide Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people."
Ms Amagula, 55, spoke to the ABC last year about the heartache she had suffered moving away from her home at Groote Eylandt in the Top End to travel to Darwin for life-saving dialysis treatment
Indigenous dialysis patients have been mobilising for change.
At a forum last year, patients said too many people were dying a lonely death in cities and towns because there were few treatment centres in remote Australia.
Over the next four years, the Federal Government will fund a new dedicated Medicare item for remote dialysis treatment at a cost of $34.8 million.
Ms Amagula, is able to have dialysis at home on Groote Eylandt for a few months a year, but would dearly like her community and other islands to add more machines so that people can stay home permanently.
"Getting treatment in Darwin is always a heavy disrupted life," she said.
"We leave our remote communities, we leave our paradise, our lifelong homelands and people and country."
Money for new remote dialysis centres 'a game changer'
There was also $23 million allocated in the budget for Western Desert Dialysis, better known as the Purple House, which fundraises for Aboriginal-controlled treatment centres in remote communities.
Sarah Brown, who leads the award-winning service, said the funding announcement was "staggering" and "completely unbelievable".
"This is absolutely a game changer; it's going to change individuals' lives, families' lives and communities who have been desperately worried about losing their senior family members."
Ms Brown said Purple House had spent the past 15 years "trying to scrape bits of money" to keep doors open and keep dialysis nurses in remote areas.
"It's such good news. This is the first time when we've actually got money to do what we're doing now and plan for the future."
Indigenous Health Minister Ken Wyatt described the Purple House's record as "outstanding".
"Purple House now provides 70 per cent of Central Australian dialysis services and it [is] not only changing lives, its vast program has saved many lives."
In the Kimberley in Western Australia there is a huge burden of renal disease.
Jenny Cutter from the Kimberley Aboriginal Medical Service said a new $500 Medicare item for remote dialysis was a relief.
"It's great news for us. We can put forward a plan to get our patients back home to communities," she said.
The service has four renal health centres at Broome, Derby, Fitzroy Crossing and Kununurra, but would now be able to take its mobile dialysis unit on the road.
"It's a massive boost for us to not really have to think about where the money is coming from."
Transplants and prevention still need more focus: doctors
More than 1,800 First Nations people are currently receiving dialysis across the country, but Professor Alan Cass from the Menzies School of Health Research said "we are definitely seeing this increase".
"We don't yet see any signs that the number of [Indigenous] people starting each year is diminishing," he said.
"Across Australia, these are young people — often much younger than general patients with kidney failure.
"These are young mothers and fathers."
He said the investment in remote dialysis treatment was a breakthrough.
"This is a wonderful outcome, [there is an] ... opportunity for the Federal Government to work with the community sector to address a pressing issue for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities," Professor Cass said.
"There's potential that several hundred patients can benefit from this."
Professor Cass said each year, more than 100 new dialysis patients started treatment in the Northern Territory and about 800 were currently on dialysis.
Last year, the ABC revealed serious concerns Australia's organ transplant system was tipped towards waitlisting non-Indigenous patients over Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who required a new kidney.
The Federal Government will now undertake a review of the organ donation and transplantation sector in collaboration with states and territories, to "identify barriers to equity of access to transplant waiting lists".
Mr Wyatt said the Government would also spend $34.3 million on combatting eye disease, $30 million for hearing loss in Aboriginal communities and $4.8 million towards eliminating crusted scabies.
