Spending the day in coronavirus lockdown is not how I pictured Mother's Day this year. With three young children, the pressures of isolation and parenting in lockdown have been challenging.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
And yet, in many ways I am thankful. My husband Chris is an anesthetist and I am a GP. Because health workers are extremely susceptible to the virus, six weeks ago, Chris and I were preparing for the worst.
As the number of coronavirus cases started to increase alarmingly fast in Australia, we sat down for a serious discussion about what we would do if we became sick. Despite the young age of our children, we were prepared to send them to live with my parents and isolate on their farm in Goulburn.
This would have been difficult for everyone, of course. But in times of crisis, we must all make big changes adapt to the challenges of our new reality.
Luckily, our worst fears never came to pass. Our regional community of Wagga has so far seen very few coronavirus cases.
I'm really proud of how our community has looked after each other, and done the right thing by staying home. But we're still struggling, as are many regional communities across the country. The ongoing impact of climate change on communities like mine, including the devastating drought and hellish summer of bushfires and smoke pollution, cannot be underestimated. As a GP, I see the lasting impact of the bushfires and drought on my patients every day, and coronavirus is making it worse.
The lockdown is taking its toll on people's mental health, already affected by the trauma of the bushfires. I hear stories from people unable to rebuild after the fires due to social distancing restrictions and disruption to supplies and income.
I know that coronavirus is no small matter - as a doctor, I take it as seriously as anyone can. But I also want to urge our leaders to take the climate crisis equally seriously. As a doctor and a mother, I'm deeply concerned about, the increasing climate threat, and the rapidly closing window we have to safeguard our future as a society, and that of our children. In recent weeks we've seen how everything can flex to respond to nationwide pandemic, abandoning long-held ideologies and ways of doing things.
This Mother's Day, I'm calling on our leaders to show the same flexibility and courage, and commit to rebuilding in a way that supports regional communities to meet the challenges of climate change.
Trudi Beck is a Wagga Wagga GP and a member of Doctors for the Environment Australia
