Are you still feeling the impact of drought? For many Australians, it never went away. And no one has more insight into what rural communities are going through than the researchers and medical practitioners who live in them.
Anna Edgar, the Rural Clinical Services and Research Coordinator for Hunter New England Local Health District, says home-grown research draws strength from communities deciding what’s right for them.
“I live in Tamworth, and looking at the way the landscape bounces back [from drought], that’s incredible,” she told ABC Newcastle’s Dan Cox and Jenny Marchant.
“But then we think about people’s bank balances, the overdraft, the long-term trauma of their mental illness… the fact that they’ve neglected their chronic illness because they can’t prioritise visiting the doctor or having their prescriptions filled.”
Anna Edgar is a recipient of the NSW Regional Health Partners Knowledge Translation Scholarship.
Listen: Anna Edgar’s full interview with ABC Newcastle Breakfast.
