New beginnings for Lismore

New beginnings for Lismore

One year on from the devastating Lismore floods, healthcare providers celebrated the grand re-opening of Keen Street Clinic. Dr Sue Velovski reports on a community coming together after months of struggle.

On 28 February 2022, our Lismore community was devastated by the biggest flood to hit our town in a century. When the power and electricity finally came back on 10 days later our entire world had changed. After days of darkness, I recall the first national radio news bulletin I heard… Lismore trapped in devastating floods… Ukraine at war with Russia… Rod Marsh and Shane Warne, our cricketing favourites, no longer with us… 

And then, just 21 days later, our community was underwater for a second time. With true grit and determination in her voice, Dr Nina Robertson said, “We have not lost life – everything else can be replaced.” These were wise words from a young woman battling to rebuild her general practice, keep her patients alive, her staff healthy and start again.

I cried when she spoke those words – the first of many tears over the following months, as I watched politicians fly in and out – never staying long enough to watch the mould grow back or witness how much our patients suffered as health providers struggled to re-open their practices and provide much needed care to patients. 

After months of empty words, it was our medical organisations – AMA (NSW), the Rural Doctors Association NSW, Rural Doctors Association of Australia, NSW Rural Doctors Network, and the Medical Benevolent Society, among others, that provided support and much needed advocacy to ensure our healthcare providers were provided with grant funding. These organisations spoke “truth to power” in the halls of democracy when we felt all our words had fallen on deaf ears.

The week commencing 17 Feb, we received word from our elected leaders that the Commonwealth and State governments had negotiated a $5m funding package for healthcare businesses in the Northern Rivers area – the first co-contributed fund of its kind for primary service providers affected by natural disaster.

On 3 March, Keen Street Clinic Lismore formally reopened its doors. After months of rebuilding, it is a beautiful, clean, safe environment – filled with dedicated staff of GPs and practice staff. Family friends and community members came to witness this event. Generations of senior clinicians who have looked after our communities joined junior clinicians who fought with grit, so that we as a community, literally, would not sink.

 Thank you all for letting us thrive again – letting us start our road to recovery: to health, physical, psychological, financial. It is times such as these when we realise the power of community – both medical and local – rural folk and their determination to see a better place for all.